On 8 May 1945, as Europe celebrated the German surrender, police fired on a banned nationalist march in Sétif carrying the Algerian flag, killing among others the young scout Bouzid Saâl; rioting spread through the countryside towards Kherrata and Bougie, where Algerian peasants killed about 90 Europeans, and 12 more were killed around Guelma, for 102 in all. The repression that followed was conducted around Sétif by the army with artillery, aircraft that bombed rural hamlets between 9 and 19 May, and the cruiser Duguay-Trouin, which shelled the coast; around Guelma it was carried out mainly by settler militias armed by the sub-prefect, which until 26 June killed men drawn from nationalist, scout and trade-union membership lists, then dug up and burned many of the bodies in a lime kiln at Héliopolis before the Interior Minister's visit (Jean-Pierre Peyroulou). The number of Algerians killed is unknown: French authorities gave 1,165 in 1946, historians' estimates run from several thousand to 20,000–30,000, and the Algerian state uses 45,000. France's ambassador called the massacres an 'inexcusable tragedy' in 2005, his successor said in 2008 that 'the time of denial is over', and in 2015 a French minister attended the commemoration for the first time; a resolution tabled in the National Assembly in September 2025 to recognise them as state crimes had not been adopted when consulted.
French troops, aircraft and warships, together with settler militias armed by local officials, killed thousands of Algerian Muslims in the Constantine department after a nationalist demonstration and rural uprising in which 102 Europeans were killed
The lower end is the 5,000–6,000 estimated by Charles-Robert Ageron and Gilbert Meynier for the whole repression, which Peyroulou's own reconstruction — 5,000–6,000 in the Sétif–Kherrata–Bougie region from British and American figures plus 1,500–2,000 in Guelma from Marcel Reggui's 1946 inquiry — slightly exceeds; Roger Vétillard gives 5,000–10,000. The upper end is Jean-Louis Planche's 20,000–30,000, which Peyroulou considers too high; Ferhat Abbas's newspaper gave 15,000–20,000 in 1948. Outside this range lie the French official figure of 1,165 given in 1946 (Interior Minister Tixier spoke of 'about 1,500' in July 1945), which Peyroulou calls deflationary, and the 45,000 used by the Algerian state, which he calls inflationary; the parliamentary resolution also cites an American consular estimate of 30,000–35,000. A demographic count is impossible because Muslim civil registration was poor and many deaths were never declared, and at Guelma bodies were burned to destroy evidence. Wikipedia reports a 1,020 figure from the Tubert inquiry, whereas Peyroulou attributes 5,000 to General Tubert; the discrepancy is unresolved here. The 2025 parliamentary resolution attributes a 15,000–20,000 estimate to Peyroulou and Gilles Manceron, which does not match Peyroulou's own 2008 figures given above.
Jean-Pierre Peyroulou documents the army's bombing of rural hamlets, the Guelma militia's killings ordered by an illegal tribunal and its detention of people without judicial control; the 2025 National Assembly resolution and Wikipedia (citing Rogerson) record the mass arrests, aerial bombardment and naval shelling.
Algeria