Harki

"Harki" is the Algerian slang term for someone who, during the Algerian War of Independence from 1954 to 1962, sided with the French occupation. The term is often used in a derogatory way by other Algerians. According to France, in 1962 there were 236,000 Algerian Muslims fighting for the French army; some estimates suggest that, with their families, they may have numbered as much as 1 million, but 400,000 is more commonly cited.

The harkis were widely seen as traitors in Algeria, and it was widely expected that they would suffer severe reprisals after independence. In 1962, strict orders were given by the French government to its soldiers to forbid the harkis to cross the Mediterranean and go to metropolitan France like the pieds-noirs did. However, many officers of the French army, disgusted by what they saw as an inhumane order, decided to disobey and tried to allow the harkis under their command, as well as their families, to leave for France. Around 91,000 harkis were able to flee to France. French historians estimate that somewhere between 50,000 and 150,000 harkis were killed by the FLN or by lynch mobs in Algeria, sometimes after they had been tortured, gang-raped, or suffered mutilation to their genitals or breasts.

As with the pieds-noirs, nothing had been planned for the harkis, and the government refused to recognize their right to stay in France for many years. They were made to live in "temporary" internment camps surrounded by barbed-wire. Outrage at France's treatment of the harkis, who had always been loyal to France, finally led to the French government freeing them from the camps in the 1970s and 1980s. Recently, the French government has publicly acknowledged the suffering they went through, along with that of the pieds-noirs, and there are many active harkis associations in France who work together with the pieds-noirs associations to keep the memory of these events alive.