FLQ

The assailants belonged to the Front de Libération du Québec, or FLQ, a militant group that called for the independence of their Francophone province in eastern Canada.

The FLQ, which had carried out a string of bombings, executed its most notorious attack the next year, detonating a bomb at the Montreal Stock Exchange that injured dozens.

When members of the FLQ kidnapped Mr. Cross, they demanded $500,000 in gold, the publication of a manifesto and the release of compatriots they described as “political prisoners.”

Founded in 1962, the FLQ sought to exacerbate tensions between a disproportionately affluent anglophone minority, and the working-class francophone majority.

On 5 October 1970, FLQ militants disguised as delivery men kidnapped the British trade commissioner, James Cross.