Directed by their chief Maurice Papon, Paris police massacre scores of Algerian protesters.

Maurice Papon was a French civil servant and Nazi collaborator who was convicted of crimes against humanity committed during the occupation of France. Papon led the police in major prefectures from the 1930s to the 1960s, before he became a Gaullist politician. When he was secretary general for the police in Bordeaux during World War II, he participated in the deportation of more than 1,600 Jews. He is also known for his activities in the Algerian War (1954–1962), during which he tortured insurgent prisoners as prefect of the Constantinois department, and ordered, as prefect of the Paris police, the 1961 massacre of pro-National Liberation Front (FLN) demonstrators for violating a curfew that he had "advised".

The 1961 Paris massacre was the mass killing of Algerians who were living in Paris by the French National Police. It occurred on 17 October 1961, during the Algerian War (1954–62). Under orders from the head of the Parisian police, Maurice Papon, the National Police attacked a demonstration by 30,000 pro-National Liberation Front (FLN) Algerians. After 37 years of denial and censorship of the press, in 1998 the government finally acknowledged 40 deaths, while some historians estimate that between 200 and 300 Algerians died. Death was due to heavy-handed beating by the police, as well as mass drownings, as police officers threw demonstrators into the river Seine.

Algerians are the citizens and nationals of the People's Democratic Republic of Algeria. The majority of the country's population is composed of Arabs who make up 85% of the population, and there is a Berber minority of 15%. The term also applies more broadly to any people who are of Algerian nationality, sharing a common culture and identity, as well as those who natively speak Algerian Arabic or other languages of Algeria.