Algeria
Why was the attack downplayed?
Between midnight and 2 am on the morning of All Saint's Day, 30 individual attacks were made by FLN militants against police and military targets around French Algeria. These attacks ultimately lead to the war against France in which Algeria won. This attack was particularly significant as it helps people clearly delineate what side of the conflict they were on. It also, gave the Algerian people a more patriotic sense of duty as it related to France. This is particular true as religion had a major impact on the start of the France-Algerian conflict. During the All Saints Day attack, seven people were killed. All except two were white French colonist. The political reaction notwithstanding, the Toussaint Rouge attacks did not receive much coverage in the French media. The French daily newspaper Le Monde ran less that two short columns on the front page. The attack was even downplayed in much American literature as well. Many pundits believe the reasoning for such a prescient response to the attack was likely due to two factors.
The first factor pertained to the overall ability of France to successful much of its national publications. In many instances censorship of the media by several levels of the government combined with several biased reports of the incident created a subdued view within the public domain. In addition, much of France's major media outlets in its more dense countries were...
Therefore, the attack was seen very favorably by a large support network of French. This uncanny support allowed the attack to go unnoticed as opposition was very low. Some censorship was enforced by the Paris government because of concerns about responsibilities within the Paris police department for the massacre. As a more protectionist approach took hold, censorship allowed certain police departments to commit agredious acts of crime without being punished. In fact, the Algerian War itself was marred with extreme bouts of torture and manipulation. Through proper censorship the media could downplay such occurences with question from the general public at large. Without ample questioning, certain areas of France could take advantage of questionable tactics without being properly disciplined for it. Still other censorship was enforced by the government because of concerns about its deteriorating position in the Algerian War. Pride ultimately helped Algeria become victorious. The French leaders did not want to read about defeat at the hands of the Algerians who had much less military might and coordination than France. Instead, society elected to turn away from the deterioriating position of the Algerian War, in an effort to keep their pride. Furthermore, according to James J. Napoli, coverage of the massacre by major British and American media sources, such as The Times, TIME magazine and…
