After noting instances where villagers in the Orléansville area had killed F.L.N. scouts with hatchets, Servier—despite considerable official opposition—had gained permission initially to create "light companies" from some thousand men, the able-bodied and trustworthy defectors from the F.L.N., or anciens combattants. Servier insisted that his harki units should be based near their homes, on the sensible grounds that a Muslim soldier away from his family was at the mercy of a threatening letter, and would desert—quite naturally—to save his wife and children.

XREF: Connects to broader counterinsurgency doctrine about force integration and loyalty dynamics — family coercion undermines troop reliability.

Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Alge…, loc. 792