If there was indeed to have been a concerted demonstration in favour of Algerian independence (although the evidence for this remains still inconclusive), there could hardly have been chosen a better day than V.E. Day; nor a better place in which to ignite the spark than Sétif. All Europe — and especially France — was rejoicing at deliverance from an occupying power; the United Nations Charter was about to be signed at San Francisco amid pious declarations of self-determination for subject peoples; while in Cairo birth had been given to the Arab League, a day of importance in the cause of Muslim independence everywhere. The French army was still largely preoccupied in Europe, and in Sétif itself there were no more than twenty gendarmes to maintain order.

XREF: Connects to broader patterns of decolonization movements emerging at symbolic historical moments, and the irony of self-determination being celebrated in the UN Charter while denied in colonies. SEED: Possible essay angle: how timing—days of symbolic triumph or political vacuum—shapes the fate of nascent independence movements.

Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Alge…, loc. 70