The massacre at the Charonne metro station of 8 February 1962 was an incident that took place around and in the Charonne metro station in Paris, during a demonstration against the Secret Armed Organization (OAS) and the Algerian War, which resulted in the death of nine people crushed in the doorway of the metro station.
The demonstration, organized by the French Communist Party and other left-wing organizations, had been banned, and the prefect of police of Paris, Maurice Papon, had given the order to repress it, with the agreement of the Minister of the Interior, Roger Frey, and the President of the Republic, Charles de Gaulle.
Among the demonstrators who tried to take refuge in the metro station, eight people died due to suffocation or skull fractures, and a ninth protestor died in hospital, as a result of his injuries.
Until 1960, demonstrations against the war in Algeria brought together only a few hundred participants, mostly intellectuals who denounced the torture and expeditious methods of the French army in Algeria.
After the week of the barricades in Algiers in 1960, the CGT, CFTC, FO and FEN trade union centers overcome their differences to work together for the peace movement in Algeria. After the failure of the Melun talks conducted in the summer of 1960 between the French government and the GPRA, the student union UNEF took the initiative to contact the trade union organizations to organize demonstrations to encourage the government to resume negotiations. The first demonstration of a certain magnitude took place on 27 October 1960. A meeting had been authorized at the Maison de la Mutualité in Paris, but thousands of people, especially students, who were unable to enter the hall, came up against the forces of the police. Processions that formed in the Latin Quarter were dispersed with beatings. Police violence also affected passers-by and journalists. According to Jean-Paul Brunet, the repression of this demonstration revealed the bias of the police forces, which reacted much more sluggishly against supporters of French Algeria.
Smaller demonstrations were held during the first 9 months of 1961 and were easily dispersed by the police. The protests started to grow in the fall with the apparent breakdown of negotiations between the French government and the GPRA.
On 17 October 1961, a demonstration of some 30,000 pro-National Liberation Front (FLN) Algerians was attacked by the French Police under orders of the head of the Parisian police, Maurice Papon (who was convicted in 1998 for crimes against humanity for his role under the collaborationist regime of Vichy France). Several protestors were killed during the attack, either by shots, heavy hand beating or were drowned. There were also cases of torture and executions of arrested protestors. For several days, corpses were found on the surface of the river Seine. The French government denied the events and censored the press, until 1998, when it acknowledged 40 deaths.
The repression of the 17 October demonstration provoked a movement of indignation in left-wing circles but did not generate any massive response.
From November 1961, protests with thousands of inhabitants started taking place again. The demonstration were both to stimulate the peace process and to demand from the government a more resolute attitude against the far-right paramilitary OAS.
The demonstration of 19 December 1961 - convened in the Paris region by the CGT, the CFTC and the UNEF was part of a "day of action against the OAS and for peace in Algeria". The police let the demonstrators gather in Bastille but opposed any movement by part of the protestors. The director general of the municipal police reported 20,000 demonstrators. Among these, some refused to obey the dispersal orders given by the police and were charged. Young demonstrators fought back. The clashes resulted in 40 wounded among the police and hundreds among the protestors, two thirds of which women.
At the beginning of 1962, under the impetus of André Canal, the OAS multiplied the attacks in the Paris region. On 4 January 1962, a commando in a car machine-gunned the Communist Party building on Place Kossuth, seriously injuring a militant on the 2nd floor balcony. The communist demonstration of protest of 6 January 1962 took place without notable incident. On 24 January 1962, there were 21 explosions in the Seine department, targeting supposedly personalities or organizations hostile to OAS.
In the afternoon of 7 February, ten plastic charges exploded in the homes of various personalities: two law professors, Roger Pinto and Georges Vedel, two journalists, Serge Bromberger, from Le Figaro, and Vladimir Pozner, seriously injured, two officers and Communist senator Raymond Guyot, whose wife was injured. A final attack aimed at André Malraux disfigured a 4-year-old girl, Delphine Renard.
The Communist Party and the CGT were determined to act quickly. The CFTC, which wondered about the type of action to be implemented, opted for the organization of a mass demonstration. The evening of 7 February, the leaders of the CGT and the CFTC met and decided to call for a massive demonstration the next day. The FEN and the UNEF were also represented at this meeting. A leaflet of appeal was thus drawn up:ALL IN MASS, tonight at 18:30, Bastille
The OAS assassins have redoubled their activity. Several times during the day on Wednesday, the OAS attempted against the lives of political, trade union, academic, press and literary figures. Injuries are to be deplored; the writer Pozner is in serious condition. A 4-year-old girl is seriously injured. We must put an end to these actions of the Fascist killers. It is necessary to impose their putting out of harm's way. The complicity and impunity from which they benefit from the power, despite speeches and official declarations, encourage the criminal acts of the OAS.
Once again, the proof is made that the anti-fascists can only count on their forces, on their union, on their action. The undersigned organizations call on workers and all anti-fascists in the Paris region to proclaim their indignation, their desire to defeat fascism and impose peace in Algeria.The text was signed by the trade unions CGT, CFTC, UNEF, SGEN, FEN and SNI. The PCF, the PSU and the Mouvement de la paix were associated with the call.
Prohibition of the demonstration
Maurice Papon met on the morning of 8 February with a trade union delegation made up of André Tollet for the CGT, Robert Duvivier for the CFTC and Tony Dreyfus for the UNEF. Papon informed them that the decree of 23 April 1961, taken at the time of the Algiers putsch of 1961, remained valid and prohibited demonstrations on the public highway. The delegates informed that they would maintain the peaceful demonstration. No other unofficial contact took place.
When questioned, General Intelligence predicted 10,000 to 15,000 demonstrators. The prefecture, revising these forecasts downwards, was counting on a range of 6,000 to 7,000 and set up 13 intervention companies (CI), i.e. 1,000 seasoned police officers, 11 mobile gendarmerie squadrons, i.e. 825 men supposedly less seasoned than the first, 3 Republican Security Companies (CRS), i.e. 360 men and a few hundred General Service "peacekeepers". There were therefore fewer law enforcement personnel than on 19 December 1961 - when the police headquarters had put 5,556 officers in front of the demonstrators, but more than on 17 October 1961 - when 1,658 officers were in front of the 20,000 or 30,000 protesters. Each squadron of mobile gendarmes is normally paired with an intervention company, and the whole is under the command of a commissaire de police.