The strikers on the streets of Algiers
The 1957 Algerian general strike occurred in late January 1957 when the FLN revolutionary group called for a general strike across Algeria to defy the French colonial administration during the Algerian War. Beginning on 28 January 1957, the same day as a United Nations debate on the Algerian question, the strike saw schoolteachers and children abandon their schools and saw merchants in the Arab districts shutter their stores, refusing to work. Eventually, the French Army was sent in to forcibly reopen shops and force the students back into their schools, and the army clamped down on the FLN and its sympathizers. The strike won international support for the pro-independence cause, and the government of France suffered political backlash from its actions.