Marcel Bigeard, personal radio call-sign "Bruno", was a French military officer and politician who fought in World War II, the First Indochina War and the Algerian War. He was one of the commanders in the Battle of Dien Bien Phu and is thought by many to have been a dominating influence on French "unconventional" warfare thinking from that time onwards. He was one of the most decorated officers in France, and is particularly noteworthy because of his rise from being a regular soldier in 1936 to ultimately concluding his career in 1976 as a Lieutenant General and serving in the government of Valéry Giscard d'Estaing.

The Algerian War was a major armed conflict between France and the Algerian National Liberation Front (FLN) from 1954 to 1962, which led to Algeria winning its independence from France. An important decolonization war, it was a complex conflict characterized by guerrilla warfare and war crimes. The conflict also became a civil war between the different communities and within the communities. The war took place mainly on the territory of Algeria, with repercussions in metropolitan France.