Several 19th-century French rulers were targeted in unsuccessful assassination attempts which killed innocent bystanders.
Since 1970, France experienced 2,654 terrorist incidents, resulting in 1,247 terrorist-related deaths and 2,559 injuries, the second highest in western Europe after the United Kingdom.
Various Middle Eastern factions carried out shootings and bombings in the 1970s and 1980s, mainly in Paris, while during the Algerian Civil War of the 1990s, insurgents associated with the Armed Islamic Group (GIA) carried out a series of major attacks against the Paris public transport system.
Nationalist extremists from the Basque, Breton and Corsican communities carried out a number of assassinations and targeted bomb attacks in the 1990s and 2000s.
The highest number of attacks recorded in a single year was 270 in 1996, largely carried out by Algerian Civil War insurgents.