France had some historic connections with Algeria, as it did with the entirety of the North African coast, based on trade and trans-Mediterranean proximity but the fact is that the justification for France's occupation of the country was on extraordinaryly flimsy grounds dating back to the so-called "Fly Whisk Incident" of 1827 wherein the ruler of Algeria supposedly struck the French ambassador with a fly whisk. Everything that followed from this, including the overall occupation of the country was pretty much a groundless colonial adventure on the part of the French but over the course of the next century France settled the Algerian coast with its own population to such an extent that parts of the Algerian coast became an actual integrated department of France rather than merely an overseas colony.

As such the status of the French in Algeria (the pieds noirs, "black feet") and the question of Algerian independence and subsequent Algerian independence war ended up playing a far more critical and emotional role for the French than many other post-World War II anti-colonial wars and movements. This included the fall of the French Fourth Republic following a coup attempt in 1958 and a second failed coup against De Gaulle in 1961.