Episode 4: To the Barricades French colonialists in Algiers staged an insurrection, known as La Semaine des Barricades (the week of the barricades). The future of the Fifth Republic hung in the balance as the French army in Algeria considered joining the revolt. Episode 5: The Suitcase or the Coffin On July 3, 1962 de Gaulle declared Algeria an independent country. The Algerian War had ended, the flight of a million French Algerians to France, however, had just begun.