Feb. 8, 1962 - Eight persons were killed and hundreds injured tonight when thousands of Leftists battled security forces in Paris. Surging columns of Leftists, demonstrating against the Right-Wing terrorist Secret Army Organization (OAS), fought the police for three hours in a working-class district before order was finally restored. The rioting covered a wide area around the Place de la Bastille. Estimates of the size of the crowd ranged into the tens of thousands. Several thousand policemen, gendarmes, and Republican Security Guards had been stationed in the area to maintain order. The demonstration had been called by Leftist student, labor and political groups, including the Communist party, after Wednesday’s wave of 10 terrorist bombings in the Paris region had injured 6 persons, including a 4-year-old girl. No sooner had the rioting ended then the terrorists countered with violence of their own. In the span of an hour, eight bombs went off in the capital and one in the suburbs. The bombings were attributed by the authorities to the OAS.
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