This article examines the events of 8 May 1945 in Annaba (Bône) and its surrounding areas. It focuses on the development of the Algerian national movement and the repressive policies of French colonial rule. The study revisits this decisive historical turning point through a close reading and deconstruction of reports produced by the colonial administration, the police, and French military courts. Using a critical historical approach that moves beyond the colonial narrative, it analyzes the political mobilization led by different currents of the national movement and its rapid entrenchment in both urban and rural communities on the eve of the confrontation. The study also reconstructs the chronology of the events. It follows the transformation of celebrations of the Allied victory into open demonstrations calling for independence and displaying the national flag, up to the moment of violent confrontation. The article argues that French repression was not a temporary security response. Rather, it formed a systematic strategy of state terror. This strategy appeared in preventive security preparations, the arming of settlers, and severe sentences issued by the Military Court of Constantine, including death sentences and hard labor. It also involved symbolic and psychological coercion directed at religious leaders, as well as propaganda intended to obscure the facts. The study concludes that the massacres in the Annaba region created a decisive psychological and political break with the illusion of "assimilation." They also helped consolidate the conviction that armed struggle was inevitable, a struggle that erupted in November 1954.