Driven by a desire for an independent Algeria and emboldened by the decline of French overseas prestige after the Battle of Điện Biên Phủ in then
Indo-China, a brutal war of independence began in Algeria on 1 Nov 1954.
France was riven by conflicting objectives, towards Morocco and Tunisia on the one hand and towards Algeria on the other.
After an Independence Referendum in Jan 1961 voted by > 70% for Algerian Independence, General De Gaulle - who had been elected President of France in Feb 1959 - opened secret negotiations with the Algerian
Front de Liberation Nationale (FLN) to end the war. Progress was made in these talks and publically acknowledged sessions were due to commence but were delayed by an insurrection, led by some French generals in Algeria on the night of 21/22 Apr 1961 (which failed).
The talks eventually began in Évian on 20 May 1961 but were initially unsuccessful and the Algerian delegation - who had been staying at the
Bois dAvault in Switzerland - returned home in Jun 1961.
The desire for an end was clear and talks resumed clandestinely in Nov 1961 with draft agreements signed at Les Rousses on 18 Feb 1962 and completed publically at Évian on 7 to 18 March 1962. Algeria gained its independence on 3 Jul 1962 but sadly this was not the end of the violence there, or the internal divisions within France over the whole issue.
Individual helicopters