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| 1960, Feb. 13 |
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| France exploded its first atomic bomb in the Saharan areas of southwestern Algeria and became the fourth nation to develop nuclear capacity (after the United States, the Soviet Union, and Great Britain). France undertook a series of atmospheric nuclear tests over the years that followed, in Africa and the Pacific. | 1 |
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| April 25 |
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| The Gaullist Union ousted one of its founders, Jacques Soustelle, who was a strong believer in Algeria's integration with France. | 2 |
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| 1961, April 11 |
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| President de Gaulle announced his government's unwillingness to take part in any United Nations activities and reiterated his refusal to pay the French share of UN costs in the Congo. A year later (March 5, 1962), the French government refused to send a representative to the Geneva disarmament conference, and, as of 1966, it withdrew from its military commitments to NATO. | 3 |
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| April 23 |
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| French leaders alerted the nation to a possible invasion by rightist military insurgents from Algeria (See 1961, April 22–26); President de Gaulle assumed full powers to deal with the crisis. | 4 |
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