The Organisation armée secrète (OAS, "Secret Army Organisation") was a far-right dissident French paramilitary organisation during the Algerian War, founded in 1961 by Raoul Salan, Pierre Lagaillarde and Jean-Jacques Susini. The terrorist movement was particularly active in the final phase of the Algerian War and wanted to prevent Algeria's independence from French colonial rule by all means. The OAS carried out bombings, assassinations, and acts of torture that resulted in over 2,000 deaths. Its motto was L’Algérie est française et le restera ("Algeria is French and will remain so").
The OAS was formed from existing networks, calling themselves "counter-terrorists", "self-defence groups", or "resistance", which had carried out attacks on the Algerian National Liberation Front (FLN) and their perceived supporters since early in the war. It was officially formed in Francoist Spain, in Madrid in January 1961, as a response by some French politicians and French military officers to the 8 January 1961 referendum on self-determination concerning Algeria, which had been organised by President de Gaulle.
By acts of bombings and targeted assassinations in both metropolitan France and French Algerian territories, which are estimated to have resulted in 2,000 deaths between April 1961 and April 1962, the OAS attempted to prevent Algerian independence. This campaign culminated in a wave of attacks that followed the March 1962 Évian Accords, which granted independence to Algeria and marked the beginning of the exodus of the pieds-noirs (ethnic Europeans born in Algeria), and in Jean Bastien-Thiry's 1962 assassination attempt against president de Gaulle in the Paris suburb of Le Petit-Clamart. The existentialist philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre, who supported the FLN was a notable target of their actions.
The OAS still has admirers in French nationalist movements. In July 2006, some OAS sympathisers attempted to relight the flame of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier to commemorate the Oran massacre on 5 July 1962.
The OAS was created in response to the January 1961 referendum on self-determination for Algeria. It was founded in Spain, in January 1961, by former officers, Pierre Lagaillarde (who led the 1960 Siege of Algiers), General Raoul Salan (who took part in the 1961 Algiers putsch or "Generals' Uprising") and Jean-Jacques Susini, along with other members of the French Army, including Yves Guérin-Sérac, and former members of the French Foreign Legion from the First Indochina War (1946–1954). OAS-Métro, the branch in metropolitan France, was led by captain Pierre Sergent. These officers united earlier anti-FLN networks such as the Organisation de Résistance de L'Algérie Française. While the movement had a broadly anticommunist and authoritarian base, in common with the political outlook of many colonists, it also included many ex-communists and a number of members who saw its struggle in terms of defending fraternal bonds between Algerians and the colonists against the FLN. In France the OAS mainly recruited amongst overtly fascist political groups. In Algeria its makeup was more politically diverse, and included a group of Algerian Jews, led by Jean Ghenassia. Some Algerian OAS members conceived of the conflict in terms of the French Resistance, and in contrast to later Gaullist depictions of the movement, it included a number of former Resistance members in addition to Vichy collaborators.
Resistance against Algerian independence commenced in January 1960, with further violence breaking out in 1961 during the General's Uprising. Both of these insurrections were swiftly suppressed and many of the leaders who had created the OAS were imprisoned.
By acts of sabotage and assassination in both metropolitan France and French Algerian territories, the OAS attempted to prevent Algerian independence. The first victim was Pierre Popie, attorney and president of the People's Republican Movement (Mouvement Républicain Populaire, MRP), who stated on TV, "French Algeria is dead" (L’Algérie française est morte). Roger Gavoury, head of the French police in Algiers, was assassinated at the direction of Roger Degueldre, leader of the OAS Commando Delta, with the actual killing done by Claude Piegts and Albert Dovecar on 31 May 1961. The OAS became notorious for stroungas, attacks using plastic explosives.
In October 1961 Pierre Lagaillarde, who had escaped to Francoist Spain following the 1960 barricades week, was arrested in Madrid, along with the Italian activist Guido Giannettini. Franco then exiled him to the Canary Islands.
The Delta commandos engaged in indiscriminate killing sprees, on 17 March 1962; against cleaning-ladies on 5 May; on 15 March 1962 against six inspectors of the National Education Ministry, who directed the "Educative Social Centres" (Centres sociaux éducatifs), including Mouloud Feraoun, an Algerian writer, etc. It is estimated that the assassinations carried out by the OAS between April 1961 and April 1962 left 2,000 people dead and twice as many wounded.
The OAS attempted several times to assassinate French president Charles de Gaulle. The most prominent attempt was a 22 August 1962 ambush at Petit-Clamart, a Paris suburb, planned by a military engineer who was not an OAS member, Jean Bastien-Thiry. Bastien-Thiry was executed in March 1963 after de Gaulle refused to grant him amnesty. A fictionalised version of this attack was recreated in the 1971 book by Frederick Forsyth, The Day of the Jackal, and in the 1973 film of the same name.
The OAS use of extreme violence created strong opposition from some pieds-noirs and in mainland France. As a result, the OAS eventually found itself in violent clandestine conflict with not only the FLN but also French secret services and with a Gaullist paramilitary, the Mouvement pour la Communauté (the MPC). Originally a political movement in Algiers, the MPC eventually became a paramilitary force in response to OAS violence. The group obtained valuable information which was routinely passed on to the French secret services, but was eventually destroyed by OAS assassinations.
March 1962 Evian agreements and the struggle of the OAS
The main hope of the OAS was to prove that the FLN was secretly restarting military action after a ceasefire was agreed in the Evian agreements of 19 March 1962 and the referendum of June 1962, so during these three months, the OAS unleashed a new terrorist campaign to force the FLN to abandon the ceasefire. Over 100 bombs a day were detonated by the OAS in March in pursuit of this goal. OAS operatives set off an average of 120 bombs per day in March, with targets including hospitals and schools. Dozens of Arab residents were killed at Place du Gouvernement when 24 mortar rounds were fired from the European stronghold of Bab el-Oued. On 21 March, the OAS issued a flyer where they proclaimed that the French military had become an "occupation force." It organized car bombings: 25 killed in Oran on 28 February 1962 and 62 killed in Algiers on 2 May, among others. On 22 March, they took control of Bab el-Oued and attacked French soldiers, killing six of them. The French military then surrounded them and stormed the neighbourhood. The battle killed 15 French soldiers and 20 OAS members, and injured 150 more. On 26 March, the leaders of the OAS proclaimed a general strike in Algiers and called for the European settlers to come to Bab el-Oued in order to break the blockade by military forces loyal to de Gaulle and the Republic. A detachment of tirailleurs (Muslim troops in the French Army) fired on the demonstrators, killing 54, injuring 140, and traumatising the settlers' population in what is known as the "gunfight of the Rue d'Isly". In coincidence with the uprising of Bab-el Oued, 200 OAS maquis marched from Algiers to Ouarsenis, a mountainous region between Oran and Algiers. They tried to overrun two French military outposts and gain support for local Muslim tribes loyal to France, but instead they were harassed and eventually defeated by Legion units led by Colonel Albert Brothier after several days of fighting. Some clashes between the French army and the OAS involving grenades and mortar fire took place at Oran as late as 10 April. At least one Lieutenant and one Second-Lieutenant were killed by the OAS during the fighting.