 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.The so-called "Harkis", 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.