Editing Algerian War (section)

== Exodus of the Pieds-noirs and Harkis ==
''[[Pieds-noirs]]'' (including indigenous [[Mizrahi Jews|Mizrachi]] and [[Sephardi Jews]]) and [[Harki]]s accounted for 13% of the total population of Algeria in 1962. For the sake of clarity, each group's exodus is described separately here, although their fate shared many common elements.

=== Pieds-noirs ===
[[File:Commando de chasse V66 du 4me Zouaves.jpg|thumb|[[Commandos de Chasse]] of the 4th [[Zouave]] regiment. Zouave regiments were mostly composed of European settlers.]]
''Pied-noir'' (literally "black foot") is a term used to name the European-descended population (mostly [[Roman Catholic Church|Catholic]]), who had resided in Algeria for generations; it is sometimes used to include the indigenous [[Maghrebi Jewish]] population as well, which likewise emigrated after 1962. Europeans arrived in Algeria as immigrants from all over the western Mediterranean (particularly France, Spain, Italy and [[Malta]]), starting in 1830. The Jews arrived in several waves, some coming as early as 600&nbsp;BC and during the Roman period, known as the [[Maghrebi Jews]] or Berber Jews. The Maghrebi Jewish population was outnumbered by the Sephardic Jews, who were driven out of Spain in 1492, and was further strengthened by Marrano refugees from the [[Spanish Inquisition]] through the 16th century. Algerian Jews largely embraced French citizenship after the [[décret Crémieux]] in 1871.

In 1959, the ''pieds-noirs'' numbered 1,025,000 (85% of European Christian descent, and 15% were made up of the indigenous Algerian population of [[Maghrebi Jewish|Maghrebi]] and Sephardi Jewish descent), and accounted for 10.4% of the total population of Algeria. In just a few months in 1962, 900,000 of them fled, the first third prior to the referendum, in the largest relocation of population to Europe since the Second World War. A motto used in the FLN message to the pieds-noirs was "a suitcase or a coffin" ("''La valise ou le cercueil''"), repurposing a slogan first coined years earlier by ''pied-noir'' "ultras" when rallying the European community to their hardcore line.

The French government claimed not to have anticipated such a massive exodus; it estimated that a maximum of 250–300,000 might enter metropolitan France temporarily. Nothing was planned for their move to France, and many had to sleep in the streets or abandoned farms on their arrival. A minority of departing ''pieds-noirs'', including soldiers, destroyed their property before departure, to protest and as a desperate symbolic attempt to leave no trace of over a century of European presence, but the vast majority of their goods and houses were left intact and abandoned. A large number of panicked people camped for weeks on the docks of Algerian harbors, waiting for a space on a boat to France. About 100,000 ''pieds-noirs'' chose to remain, but most of those gradually left in the 1960s and 1970s, primarily due to residual hostility against them, including machine-gunning of public places in [[Oran]].<ref name="ina">{{cite web|url=http://www.ina.fr/archivespourtous/index.php?vue=notice&from=fulltext&full=pied+noir&datedif_annee1=1962&num_notice=2&total_notices=36|publisher=ina.fr|title=Alger Panse Ses Plaies|access-date=2017-01-13|archive-date=19 April 2007|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070419233350/http://www.ina.fr/archivespourtous/index.php?vue=notice&from=fulltext&full=pied+noir&datedif_annee1=1962&num_notice=2&total_notices=36|url-status=live}}</ref>

=== Harkis ===
[[File:Harki-j.jpg|thumb|130px|Young [[Harki]] in uniform, summer 1961]]
The so-called ''[[Harki]]s'', from the Algerian-Arabic dialect word ''harki'' (soldier), were indigenous Muslim Algerians (as opposed to European-descended Catholics or indigenous Algerian [[Maghrebi Jews]]) who fought as auxiliaries on the French side. Some of these were veterans of the [[Free French Forces]] who participated in the liberation of France during World War II or in the [[Indochina War]]. The term also came to include civilian indigenous Algerians who supported a French Algeria. According to French government figures, there were 236,000 Algerian Muslims serving in the French Army in 1962 (four times more than in the FLN), either in regular units ([[Spahi]]s and [[Tirailleur]]s) or as irregulars (harkis and moghaznis). Some estimates suggest that, with their families, the indigenous Muslim loyalists may have numbered as many as 1&nbsp;million.<ref>Philippe Denoix, "Harkis" in Encyclopædia Universalis, 2010</ref><ref>General Maurice Faivre, ''Les combattants musulmans de la guerre d'Algérie: des soldats sacrifiés'', Editions L'Harmattan, 1995, p.124</ref>

In 1962, around 90,000 ''Harkis'' took refuge in France, despite French government policy against this. Pierre Messmer, Minister of the Armies, and [[Louis Joxe]], Minister for Algerian Affairs, gave orders to this effect.<ref>On 19 March 1962 Joxe ordered attempts by French officers to transfer Harkis and their families to France to cease, followed by a statement that "the Auxiliary troops landing in the Metropolis in deviation from the general plan will be sent back to Algeria".</ref> The ''Harkis'' were seen as traitors by many Algerians, and many of those who stayed behind suffered severe reprisals after independence. [[French historians]] estimate that somewhere between 50,000 and 150,000 ''Harkis'' and members of their families were killed by the FLN or by lynch mobs in Algeria, often in atrocious circumstances or after torture.<ref name=Horne/>{{rp|537}} The abandonment of the "Harkis" both the lack of recognition of those who died defending French Algeria and the neglect of those who escaped to France, remains an issue that France has not fully resolved—although the government of [[Jacques Chirac]] made efforts to recognize the suffering of these former allies.<ref>"Chirac hails Algerians who fought for France", The Telegraph 26 September 2001</ref>