President Emmanuel Macron will grant France’s top honor to Algerians who fought alongside French troops during the north African country’s war of independence. Notifications published in the official journal on Friday showed that Macron would grant the Legion dHonneur, the countrys top honor, to six former fighters and the co-founder of an association which has fought for their rights. Another 19 people are to be granted an Order of Merit, ahead of Frances National Harki Day on September 25. After a peace accord granted Algerian independence on March 18, 1962, only around 60,000 Algerian loyalists known as "harkis" were allowed into France. There, they suffered rampant discrimination and, in many cases, poverty. The rest -- between 55,000 and 75,000, according to historians -- remained in Algeria, where many suffered reprisals after being accused of being traitors. The fate of the harkis in France and their descendants, who number hundreds of thousands, remains a highly sensitive issue in France, acting as a reminder of its colonial history. Previous presidents of the left and right had taken cautious steps to acknowledge and face up to French wrongdoing in Algeria and after the war. Rightwing leader Nicolas Sarkozy admitted in 2012 that France failed in its duty towards the Algerians who fought for France, saying the country "should have protected the harkis from history, it did not do so." Macron has gone further than his predecessors in addressing Frances past in Algeria. Last year he sparked controversy on the campaign trail by declaring that Frances colonization of Algeria was a "crime against humanity", leading to protests from some harki groups. And last week he acknowledged that the French military instituted a "system" that facilitated torture as it sought to cling on to its 130-year rule in the country. He made the announcement while admitting that the French state was responsible for the torture and death of mathematician Maurice Audin, a French Communist pro-independence activist who disappeared in Algiers in 1957.