De Gaulle believed that while the war in Algeria was militarily winnable , it was not defensible internationally , and he became reconciled to the colony 's eventual independence . This stance greatly angered the French settlers and their metropolitan supporters , and de Gaulle was forced to suppress two uprisings in Algeria by French settlers and troops , in the second of which ( the Generals ' Putsch in April 1961 ) France herself was threatened with invasion by rebel paratroops . De Gaulle 's government also covered up the Paris massacre of 1961 , issued under the orders of the police prefect Maurice Papon . He was also targeted by the settler Organisation armée secrète ( OAS ) terrorist group and several assassination attempts were made on him ; the most famous is that of 22 August 1962 , when he and his wife narrowly escaped an assassination attempt when their Citroën DS was targeted by machine gun fire arranged by Jean-Marie Bastien-Thiry in Petit-Clamart . After a referendum on Algerian self-determination carried out in 1961 , de Gaulle arranged a cease-fire in Algeria with the March 1962 Évian Accords , legitimated by another referendum a month later . Algeria became independent in July 1962 , while an amnesty was later issued covering all crimes committed during the war , including the use of torture . In just a few months in 1962 , 900,000 French settlers left the country . The exodus accelerated after the 5th of July 1962 massacre
Paris massacre of 1961
Paris massacre of 1961
1960s in France