On October 17, 1961, tens of thousands of Algerians marched through the streets of Paris in peaceful defiance of a discriminatory curfew imposed by the French state. Police opened fire, beat protesters, arrested them en masse—and, in some cases, threw people into the Seine, where they drowned. Historians later called it “the bloodiest act of state repression of street protest in Western Europe in modern history.” At least 48—but possibly hundreds—were killed.
Yet for decades, the official story minimized the violence. The death toll, it was claimed, was three. Police had acted to defend themselves. The protesters were terrorists.
The French state actively buried the truth. Records were falsified. Evidence suppressed. Investigations blocked. Publications seized. The paper trail was shaped to match the story.
