France, Oct. 16 -- Sixty-five years ago, at the height of Algeria's war of independence against France, thousands of Algerian men and women heeded a call by the National Liberation Front (FLN) and took to the streets of Paris in protest.

The demonstrators were unarmed, but were in breach of a dusk to dawn curfew imposed on people of Algerian origin.

Police, under the authority of Paris police chief Maurice Papon, used extreme violence to disperse them.

The official death toll at the time was three. But historians' estimates have since put the figure between 100 and 200, many of whom were thrown into the River Seine.

The city of Paris began commemorating the massacre in 2001. In 2012, then-president Francois Hollande acknowledged a "bl...