Now, in its despair at realising that all was lost, the O.A.S. adopted a “scorched earth policy”. If the French cannot, or will not, remain, the O.A.S. argued, then we shall leave Algeria as it was when they arrived in 1830. After a brief respite, on 7 June the University of Algiers library was burned; then followed the destruction of schools, laboratories and hospital facilities — the finest benefits that French civilisation had bestowed on Algeria. In the biggest explosion to date, Algiers’s fine new Hôtel de Ville was blown up; finally, in June, Oran’s vast B.P. oil storage tanks went up in a great pillar of smoke.

XREF: Links to decolonization histories and scorched-earth tactics seen in other colonial withdrawals.

Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Alge…, loc. 1614