The Algerian War of Independence (1954–62) was a period of guerrilla strikes, maquis fighting, terrorism against civilians on both sides, and riots between the French army and colonists in Algeria and the FLN (Front de Libération Nationale) and other pro-independence Algerians. The French government of the time considered all Algerian violence, including violence against the French military, to be crimes or terrorism. Many others have compared French resistance to Nazi German occupation to Algerian resistance to French occupation.

The struggle was ignited by the FLN in 1954. The FLN's main Algerian rival was the National Algerian Movement (Mouvement National Algérien, MNA) whose main supporters were Algerian workers in France. The FLN and MNA fought against each other in France and Algeria for nearly the full duration of the conflict even though both parties had the same goal of Algerian independence. During 1956 and 1957, the National Liberation Army (Armée de Libération Nationale - ALN), ALN successfully applied hit-and-run tactics according to the classic canons of guerrilla warfare. Specializing in ambushes and night raids and avoiding direct contact with superior French firepower.

Although successful in presenting an atmosphere of fear and uncertainty within both communities in Algeria, the revolutionaries' coercive tactics suggested that they had not yet rallied the Muslim people to revolt against French colonial rule. Gradually, the ALN established a simple but effective military administration that was able to collect taxes and food, as well as to recruit work forces around South of Algiers.

To increase international and domestic French attention to their struggle, the FLN decided to bring the conflict to the cities and to call a nationwide general strike. The most notable event was the Battle of Algiers, which began on September 30, 1956, when three women placed bombs at three sites including the downtown office of Air France. General Jacques Massu, who was instructed to use whatever methods were necessary to restore order in the city, fought terrorism with more acts of terrorism. Using paratroopers, he broke the strike and systematically destroyed the FLN infrastructure. Massu's troops punished villages that were suspected of harboring rebels and gathered 2 million of rural population to concentration camps. It was reminiscent of Nazi tactics against French Resistances.

Despite complaints from the military command in Algiers, the French government was reluctant for many months to admit that the Algerian situation was out of control and that what was viewed officially as a pacification operation had developed into a major colonial war. Late in 1957, General Raoul Salan, commanding the French army in Algeria, instituted a system of quadrillage (or surveillance), dividing the country into sectors, each permanently garrisoned by troops responsible for suppressing rebel operations in their assigned territory. Salan's methods sharply reduced the instances of FLN terrorism but tied down a large number of troops in static defense. Salan also The French military command ruthlessly applied the principle of collective responsibility to villages suspected of sheltering, supplying, or in any way cooperating with the guerrillas. The French army shifted its tactics at the end of 1958 from dependence on quadrillage to the use of mobile forces deployed on massive search-and-destroy missions against ALN strongholds. Within the next year, Salan's successor, General Maurice Challe, appeared to have suppressed major rebel resistance. However, political developments had already overtaken the French army's successes.

In 1958, Charles De Gaulle immediately appointed a committee to draft a new constitution for France's Fifth Republic with which Algeria would be associated but it would not form an integral part. FLN mounted a desperate campaign of terror in Algeria to intimidate Muslims into boycotting the referendum. In February 1959, de Gaulle was elected president of the new Fifth Republic. He visited Constantine in October to announce a program to end the war and create an Algeria closely linked to France in which Europeans and Muslims would join as partners.

In a September 1959 statement, de Gaulle reversed his stand and talks with the FLN reopened at Evian in May 1961. In their final form, the Evian Accords allowed the colons equal legal protection with Algerians over a three-year period. At the end of that period, however, Europeans would be obliged to become Algerian citizens.

On July 1, 1962, some 6 million of a total Algerian electorate of 6.5 million cast their ballots in the referendum on independence. The vote was nearly unanimous. De Gaulle pronounced Algeria an independent country on July 3. The Provisional Executive, however, proclaimed July 5, the 132d anniversary of the French entry into Algeria, as the day of national independence.