To help combat the insurgency , General Paul Aussaresses was dispatched to restart the intelligence unit from scratch , which had been disbanded during peacetime . Aussaresses set up the unit and started to collect intelligence and establish a network of informants and field agents . The FLN had been hard-pressed by the relentless attacks on the French Army , and two leaders of the FLN , namely Zighoud Youcef and Lakhdar Ben Tobbal decided that a spectacularly brutal operation in Philippeville would not only relieve the pressure on the FLN forces elsewhere , but also attract worldwide attention to their cause and create a situation in Algeria where one could either be for the FLN or the French . Even as late as 1955 , there still moderates within the Muslim community were not prepared to give up on the French , and who believed it still possible for the Muslims to become French citizens in practice as well as in theory . Youcef and Tobbal wanted to create a situation to polarize the Muslim community between those who supported the French and those supported the FLN , and to discredit the moderates who still believed that if Paris changed its policies the Muslims could become full French citizens . The Philippeville region had been chosen because tensions between the Muslims and '' pied-noirs '' were especially intense in the area which was well known in Algeria as a hotbed of ethnic and religious hatred and because many Muslims had lost family members during the Sétif and Guelma massacre of 8 May 1945 in the adjuring Constantine '' department ''
Sétif and Guelma massacre
Sétif and Guelma massacre
Battle of Philippeville