Description

The Sétif and Guelma massacre was a series of widespread disturbances and killings in 1945 around the French Algerian market town of Sétif, west of Constantine, Algeria. French police fired on demonstrators at a protest on 8 May 1945. Riots in the town were followed by attacks on French colons (settlers) in the surrounding countryside, resulting in 102 deaths. Subsequent attacks by the French authorities and European settler vigilantes caused deaths among the Muslim population of the region; estimates ranged between 1,020 (contemporaneous French claim) and 45,000 (subsequent Radio Cairo claim) people killed. Both the outbreak and the indiscriminate nature of its repression are thought to have marked a turning point in Franco-Algerian relations, leading to the Algerian War of 1954–1962.