Terrorist attacks in France are not a 21st century phenomenon, with the country seeing royal assassination attempts and anarchist bombings among the bloody history of the last 200 years.

The independence struggle of former colony Algeria led to what had been called the worst terrorist attack in modern French history, with the bombing in 1961 of a Strasbourg-Paris train by the Organisation de l'armee secrete — a far right paramilitary organisation dedicated to maintaining French rule in northern Africa.

The 1970s saw a series of bombing and shooting attacks, mainly in Paris, linked to crises in the Middle East.

They continued into the 1980s, including a deadly bombing of Orly Airport by the Armenian Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia in which eight people died.