Carmaux-Bons Enfants bombing

On 8 November 1892, the anarchist Émile Henry carried out a bomb attack in Paris. The attack was carried out in response to the army being sent against the striking workers of the Compagnie minière de Carmaux. Henry sent a parcel bomb to the company's headquarters in Paris, located on Avenue de l'Opéra. The company forwarded the parcel to the police, who took possession of it and brought it to the police station on Rue des Bons Enfants. The bomb exploded while the police were handling it, killing four police officers and a Carmaux company's worker. This bombing, along with other attacks during the Era of Attacks, marked an early shift in terrorist strategy: instead of targeting specific individuals, it focused on symbolic locations—in this case, the siege of the mining company as a stand-in for a precise human target. This shift became a hallmark of modern terrorism but was poorly understood by contemporaries.

It was the most lethal attack in France during the Era of Attacks and preceded other attacks, like the Terminus bombing.