National Assembly bombing

The National Assembly bombing was a bomb attack carried out on 9 December 1893 in Paris by the anarchist militant Auguste Vaillant. Acting in reaction to other events of the Ère des attentats, literally, "Era of Attacks", (1892–1894), such as the execution of Ravachol, the militant carefully prepared a bomb and managed to enter the galleries of the French National Assembly. He then threw it towards the deputies but was hindered by the arm of another spectator, which caused his attempt to fail. The bomb exploded, killing no one but slightly injuring several people – including Vaillant himself. The session at the National Assembly continued without interruption after the attack, while Vaillant was arrested later that day.

Although the attack was a failure, it illustrated the opposition of anarchists to the French Republic and triggered two kinds of developments. On the one hand, the political authorities used it to push for the rapid adoption of the first two lois scélérates ('villainous laws') in December 1893. The first targeted press freedom, creating the category of incitement to terrorism and undermining the presumption of innocence. The second concerned criminal associations, making any terrorist project punishable, even if the act was not committed. On the other hand, the passing of the lois scélérates and the execution of Vaillant only heightened tensions during this period, pushing Émile Henry and Désiré Pauwels to commit their attacks in revenge – since Vaillant had become a martyr among anarchists. French President Sadi Carnot, who refused to grant his pardon to Vaillant, was assassinated a few months later.

The French press, particularly Le Petit Journal, seized upon the affair to delegitimize the actions of the anarchist and reinforce the republican narrative of the events. 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 National Assembly as a stand-in for a precise human target. This shift became a hallmark of modern terrorism but was poorly understood by contemporaries.