A massacre is the brutal slaughter of a very large number of people. It is synonymous with many words such as a large-scale homicide, a genocide, a mass murder... Most countries deem that killing one human being is a criminal act that must be punished. The criminal law of these countries regards massacre as a crime against humanity.

Killing to such an extent that in the end people refer to the event as a massacre means that a sizeable part of the population has been killed. Usually, a massacre is caused by a fairly small group of people who have sufficient weapons to avoid retaliation. The “mass-murderers” usually obey orders coming from an authority, whose status is often “legitimate”. Massacres are seldom caused by an isolated sick-minded person on a stroke of madness.

Over the course of history, many striking massacres happened, at the basis of which several motives may be blamed: a “desire” to exterminate of a certain type of people, to follow a logic of punishment, of retaliations or of terror...
August the 24th 1527 in France is Saint Bartholomew's day massacre, an assassination directed against the protestants and instigated by the Roman Catholics, among which King Charles 9th and Catherine de Medici have a part of responsibility. Protestants were slaughtered during several days in Paris and provinces and were found caught in a trap both because of the surprise effect and because the gates of Paris were made shut down. In total, figures for casualties were estimated at being comprised between 20 000 and 30 000.

France once again was struck by death in June the 10th 1944, day of the Ouradour sur Glane's massacre. Practically all the inhabitants living in the village (642) were murdered by a german Waffen-SS troop. SS assembled the people, and began shooting with their machine guns. They imprisoned women and children in the church and set it on fire. A handful of men survived.

The list of massacres for “political” or warfare reasons is long. In Rwanda, it is more a genocide than a massacre that took place. Nowadays, we associate school shootings to massacres.