The number of "Pieds-Noirs" who fled Algeria totalled more than 800,000 between 1962 and 1964. Many "Pieds-Noirs" left only with what they could carry in a suitcase. Adding to the confusion, the de Gaulle government ordered the French Navy not to help with transportation of French citizens. By September 1962, cities such as Oran, Bône, and Sidi Bel Abbès were half-empty. All administration-, police-, school-, justice-, and commercial activities stopped within three months after many "Pieds-Noirs" were told to choose either ""la valise ou le cercueil"" (the suitcase or the coffin). 200,000 "Pieds-Noirs" chose to remain, but they gradually left through the following decade; by the 1980s only a few thousand "Pieds-Noirs" remained in Algeria.