From the colonial wars of the 19th century to the end of the wars of decolonisation in the middle of the 20th, the army progressively institutionalised the recruitment of men among the populations over which France was establishing, then consolidating, then finally seeking to preserve its dominion. Those men, recruited using different methods depending on the period and place, fought under the tricolour flag in both the world wars, across the French Empire and Europe alike. From the mid-19th to the mid-20th century, the French army can thus be considered an imperial and colonial army.

Of the words inherited from the French presence in Algeria, few are as emotionally charged as the word “harki”. Fifty years after Algerian independence, the story of the Algerian auxiliaries of the French Army still suffers from a number of preconceptions.

Auxiliaries of the French Army in Algeria, the harkis saw a painful end to the war of independence, suffering reprisals and being uprooted. Socially and economically marginalised, bearers of a long-concealed memory, the repatriated French Muslims and their descendants have long aspired to greater recognition. Their demands today form an integral part of Algerian War remembrance.