France's National Assembly on Wednesday adopted a bill enabling the Harkis – Muslim Algerians who fought on the side of France during the Algerian war of independence –and their descendants to receive compensation for the way they were treated at the end of the war in 1962.
Up to 200,000 Harkis – the name comes the Arabic word for "movement" given to the mobile units in which they served – fought for the French colonial power during the 1954-62 war with Algeria's National Liberation Front.
They served as auxiliaries in the French army in the war that pitted Algerian independence fighters against their French colonial masters from 1954 to 1962.
At the end of the war – waged on both sides with extreme brutality, including widespread torture – the French government left the Harkis to fend for themselves, despite earlier promises that it would look after them.
Trapped in Algeria, many were massacred as the country's new masters took brutal revenge.
Thousands of others were placed in camps in France, often with their families, in degrading and traumatising conditions.
"It's part of the process that began with French President Emmanuel Macron when he was still a candidate for presidential election and he talked about the relationship between France and Algeria," Paul Smith, Head of French and Francophone studies at the University of Nottingham, told FRANCE 24.
"Last September, he started asking for forgiveness and a pardon from the Harkis for the fate that they suffered at the time of the Algerian war and later when those families that were able to escape reached France," said Smith explaining the significance of this new bill.
