 After a series of bloody, random massacres and bombings by Muslim Algerians in several towns and cities, the French "Pieds-Noirs" and urban French population began to demand that the French government engage in sterner countermeasures, including the proclamation of a state of emergency, capital punishment for political crimes, denunciation of all separatists, and most ominously, a call for 'tit-for-tat' reprisal operations by police, military, and para-military forces.