In 1956, Bigeard was sent to the "bled" (countryside) of Algeria to hunt down the FLN using helicopters to rapidly deploy his men. On 5 June 1956 during a skirmish, Bigeard took a bullet to his chest that narrowly missed his heart. On 5 September 1956, Bigeard was the victim of an assassination attempt by the FLN, being shot in the chest twice by FLN assassins while jogging alone by the Mediterranean . The American historian Max Boot wrote it was a tribute to Bigeard's toughness and the robust state of his health that he could take three bullets in his chest over the course of four months in 1956 and still be back to duty shortly afterwards. At the beginning of 1956, the regiment participated at the corps of the elite 10th Parachute Division of général Jacques Massu in the battle of Algiers. The mission of the paratroopers was to re-establish peace in the city in the autumn of 1956 and until the summer of 1957. In late 1956, the FLN had launched the Battle of Algiers, a campaign of assassinations and bombings targeting civilians designed to be the "Algerian Dien Bien Phu" The FLN had decided to deliberately target "pied-noir" citizens as a way of breaking French power. As one FLN directive put it: "A bomb causing the death of ten people and wounding fifty others is the equivalent on the psychological level to the loss of a French battalion." As such, the FLN set off bombs almost daily at restaurants, cafes, bus stops, football stadiums, and marketplaces, and anybody known to be pro-French was murdered. The FLN favored murdering pro-French Muslims and "pied-noirs" by making them wear the "Algerian smile" - cutting out the throat, ripping out the tongue and leaving the victim to bleed to death. As the carnage mounted, the 10th Parachute Division was deployed to Algiers as the police simply could not cope.