Harki (adjective from the Arabic harka, standard Arabic haraka حركة, "war party" or "movement", i.e., a group of volunteers, especially soldiers) is the generic term for Muslim Algerians loyalists who served as auxiliaries in the French Army during the Algerian War from 1954 to 1962. The phrase sometimes extends to cover all Algerian Muslims who supported the French presence in Algeria during this war. In France, the term is used to designate the Franco-musulmans rapatriés ("repatriated French Muslims") community living in the country since 1962, and its metropolitan born descendants. In this sense, the term Harki now refers to a distinct ethnocultural group, i.e. French Muslims, distinct from other French of Algerian origin or Algerians living in France. Today, the harkis and their descendants represent around 500,000 people in France.

On April 14, 2012, President Nicolas Sarkozy recognized France's "historical responsibility" in abandoning Harki Algerian veterans.

Algerian Muslim regular soldiers had served in large numbers with the French "Armée d'Afrique" (Army of Africa) from 1830 as spahis (cavalry) and tirailleurs (lit. skirmisher, i.e. infantry). They played an important part during the Franco-Prussian War of 1870 and World War I (1914–1918).

Major-General Khaled Nezzar (Arabic خالد نزّار) (born 25 December 1937) is an Algerian general and former member of the High Council of State of Algeria. He was born in the douar of Thlet, in Seriana in the Batna region. His father, Rahal Nezzar, was a former non-commissioned officer in the French army who had turned to farming after World War II. His mother died in 1941.

After studying in the local native school (école indigène), he was transferred to a school for troops' children at Kolea, and then joined the French army, studying at the Strasbourg military school in Algiers where non-commissioned officers were trained. After independence in 1962, he remained in the Algerian army, and starting rising through the ranks. He went to Moscow in 1964 to receive military training at the Frunze Military Academy there. Upon his return in 1965, he was named Director of Materiel in the Ministry of National Defense. Soon after Houari Boumedienne's coup, he was put in charge of the Saharan 2nd Motorized Infantry, based around Ain Sefra. In 1968, he was sent to Egypt to help guard the Egypt-Israel line of control, which at the time (just after the Six Day War) witnessed regular artillery bombardments and aerial bombings. After returning from Egypt, he was put in charge of training Algeria's first parachutists, with Soviet help, at Biskra.