Morocco and France share a long and intricate history, marked by periods of cooperation, conflict, and enduring cultural and economic ties. This relationship has significantly shaped Morocco's development and continues to influence its position on the global stage.
Early Interactions and Alliances
In the 16th century, the Franco-Ottoman alliance facilitated contacts between French traders and Ottoman-influenced countries. In 1533, Francis I sent Colonel Pierre de Piton as ambassador to Morocco. Ahmed ben Mohammed, the Wattassid ruler of Fes, welcomed French overtures and granted freedom of shipping and protection to French traders in a letter to Francis I dated August 13, 1533.
France established a Consul in Fes, Morocco, as early as 1577, under Henry III, in the person of Guillaume Bérard, and was the first European country to do so. Bérard was succeeded by Arnoult de Lisle and then Étienne Hubert d'Orléans in the double position of physician and representative of France at the side of the Sultan. The first Moroccan mission to France was that by Al-Hajari in 1610-11, who was sent to Europe by the Moroccan ruler to obtain redress against the ill-treatment of the Moriscos. Soon after, Ahmed el-Guezouli visited France in 1612-1613.
As early as the 17th century, Moulay Ismaïl, who was looking for allies against Spain, had excellent relations with Louis XIV of France. French officers trained the Moroccan army and advised the Moroccans in the building of public works. French Consuls in Morocco were assigned, such as Jean-Baptiste Estelle. The French ambassador François Pidou de Saint Olon, was sent by Louis XIV visited Moulai Ismael in 1693.
The Road to Colonial Rule
France again showed a strong interest in Morocco in the 1830s, as a possible extension of her sphere of influence in the Maghreb, after Algeria and Tunisia. The First Franco-Moroccan War took place in 1844, as a consequence of Morocco's alliance with Algeria's Abd-El-Kader against France. Following several incidents at the border between Algeria and Morocco, and the refusal of Morocco to abandon its support to Algeria, France faced Morocco victoriously in the Bombardment of Tangiers (August 6, 1844), the Battle of Isly (August 14, 1844), and the Bombardment of Mogador (August 15-17, 1844). The war was formally ended September 10 with the signing of the Treaty of Tangiers, in which Morocco agreed to arrest and outlaw Abd-El-Kader, reduce the size of its garrison at Oujda, and establish a commission to demarcate the border.
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The French conquest of Morocco began with the French Republic occupying the city of Oujda on 29 March 1907. France later concluded, on 27 November, the Treaty of Madrid with the Kingdom of Spain which established the Spanish protectorate in Morocco. The French Empire considerably expanded their activities in the Sultanate of Morocco after the Battle of Isly (1844). French representatives in Tangier were no longer consuls but chargés d'affaires.
The French launched campaigns against the Sultanate of Morocco which culminated in the signing of the Treaty of Fes and establishment of the French Protectorate in Morocco on 30 March 1912. The Treaty of Fes made Morocco a French protectorate.
Moroccan officials believed that Morocco would be given a regime similar to that of British Egypt, with considerable autonomy in crucial areas like justice and the internal workings of the administration. However, the Treaty of Fes was modeled explicitly upon the Treaty of Bardo, which had established the French protectorate of Tunisia in 1881.
The Treaty for the Organization of the French Protectorate in the Sherifien Empire provided that the French government would establish in cooperation with the sultan "a new regime comprising the administrative, judicial, educational, economic, financial, and military reforms which the French government may see fit to introduce within the Moroccan territory." While preserving the religious status and traditional prestige of the sultan, the French would organize a reformed sharifian Makhzen.
The French also inherited the division of Morocco into Bled el-Makhzen and Bled es-Siba. Lyautey was quick to realize that the Bled el-Makhzen was, in his expression, the Maroc utile, the part containing the fertile lands and the mineral resources which the future settlers and the entrepreneurs would want to exploit. Priority was consequently given in the extension of French control to the former Bled el-Makhzen, comprising the coastal plains and the regions of Fes, Meknes and Oujda.
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During World War I, France conscripted some 40,000 Moroccan soldiers to fight in its colonial army. The Zaian war, fought by the Amazigh population in the Khenifra region, lasted from 1914 until 1921. It was around then that the Moroccan nationalist movement was initiated.
The Struggle for Independence
But anticolonial resentment against France was growing and gained further ground during World War II - a period that saw many former European colonies achieve independence. At the outbreak of World War II in 1939, the sultan issued a call for cooperation with the French, and a large Moroccan contingent (mainly Amazigh) served with distinction in France. The collapse of the French in 1940 followed by the installation of the Vichy regime produced an entirely new situation.
In 1944, the newly formed Istiqlal Party issued a Proclamation of Independence for Morocco. In January 1944 the party submitted to the sultan and the Allied (including the French) authorities a memorandum asking for independence under a constitutional regime. The nationalist leaders, including Aḥmad Balafrej, secretary general of the Istiqlāl, were unjustly accused and arrested for collaborating with the Nazis. This caused rioting in Fès and elsewhere in which some 30 or more demonstrators were killed.
In 1952, an anti-colonial uprising in Casablanca was violently repressed by French authorities, who subsequently outlawed the Moroccan Communist and Istiqlal parties and exiled Sultan Mohamed V to Madagascar. This move galvanised resistance to colonial rule further and, eventually, France allowed Mohamed V to return to Morocco.
MOROCCAN INDEPENDENCE, an Intro [2/3]: Exile, Resistance, and the Fall of French Control (1951-1955)
The sultan declared independence on November 18, 1955, and the French protectorate ended in March 1956.
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Post-Independence: A Complex Relationship
After independence, several domestic policies were implemented to help the country move away from French influence while retaining good relations with what remained a vital diplomatic and economic partner.
In 1973, King Hassan II enacted a series of economic reforms in the private sector that transferred more than 50 percent of foreign-owned enterprises - most of which were French-owned - to Moroccan ownership. In the 1980s, the king implemented an Arabisation policy of the schooling system, switching the language of instruction from French to Arabic. Thirty years later, the policy was reversed for secondary school maths, science, and physics.
If Morocco and France enjoyed good relations for much of the past six decades, it is simply because Moroccans decided to set resentment aside, believing that it was possible for the two countries to walk side by side and build over the long run a relationship of equals based on mutual respect and reciprocity.
However, for Morocco to achieve the qualitative leap that will enable it to have a say in regional and global fora, it should urgently undertake to radically reform its health, education, and justice systems. It should also combat the culture of corruption and the rentier mentality that have long rotted the Moroccan society.
Economic and Cultural Ties
France has remained Morocco’s primary foreign investor and trade partner and has subsequently made efforts to retain friendly relations. Morocco is the main recipient of French investment on the African continent, and France remains Morocco's primary foreign investor, primary trade partner, and primary creditor-by far. French foreign direct investment is present in every sector of the Moroccan economy, including the national airline, Royal Air Maroc, and the national rail network, ONCF.
French or English? France, along with another former occupier Spain, is comfortably Morocco’s largest trading partner. In fact, Morocco is the leading destination for French investment in Africa.
Morocco also imports education from France. To this day, French schools, which are colloquially referred to as la mission-whether they're actually related to Mission Laïque Française or not-and in which French is the language of instruction and Arabic is only taught as a second language, still have a major presence in Morocco. France is the number 1 destination for Moroccan students leaving the country to study abroad, receiving 57.7% of all Moroccans studying outside of Morocco. There are approximately 1,514,000 Moroccans living in France, representing the largest community of Moroccans outside of Morocco. The INSEE announced that there are approximately 755,400 Moroccan nationals residing in France as of October 2019, representing 20% of France's immigrant population.
These have included several high-profile diplomatic meetings, including a 2007 visit by France’s then-President Nicholas Sarkozy to Morocco to oversee the start of the construction of Al Boraq, a high-speed train service that France was financing 51 percent of. Two months later, the two countries played each other in an international football friendly in France. The game ended in a 2-2 draw.
Recent Developments and Challenges
But complex relations rarely follow a straight path. In 2014, Morocco suspended judicial cooperation with France after authorities in Paris attempted to question Abdellatif Hammouchi, the head of Morocco’s domestic intelligence service, over torture allegations. Diplomatic tensions eased a year later and the countries resumed cooperation. In 2018, King Mohammed VI and French President Emmanuel Macron boarded the new high-speed rail link for its inaugural trip between Tangier and Morocco’s capital Rabat.
In many ways, relations appear to be on the upswing. Earlier this year, Macron backed Morocco’s plan of autonomy for Western Sahara under its rule. A movement led by Western Sahara’s Polisario Front has long sought independence from Morocco. Macron’s move came after former US President Donald Trump recognised Morocco’s sovereignty over the disputed territory in December 2020, a stance unchanged under President Joe Biden’s administration. France reverses course to back Moroccan autonomy plan for disputed Western Sahara.
But niggles remain. In September 2021, relations between the countries took a hit after France announced they would reduce the number of visas issued to Moroccan and Algerian nationals by 50 percent and by two-thirds for Tunisians.
The French government said it was a response to the North African governments’ refusal to take back asylum seekers sent away by French authorities. Morocco’s foreign minister Nasser Bourita described the move as “unjustified”. Bourita said he had issued 400 consular documents to Moroccans being expelled from France, but they had refused to take a mandatory COVID-19 test needed to re-enter the North African nation, which he said was “the problem of France”.
It’s clear that both nations recognise the importance of their bilateral relationship. Macron is scheduled to visit Rabat in January 2023. But first, the football teams of the two nations will square off in a historic World Cup semifinal.
On 10 February 2023, King Mohammed VI, terminated Mohamed Benchaaboun's duties as Ambassador to France. The termination took effect on the same day as the European Parliament’s decision to vote on a hostile resolution that accused Morocco of intimidating and harassing journalists and activists. On 27 February 2023, Emmanuel Macron stated, “We will move forward.
Morocco's Perspective
Moroccans should take advantage of the ongoing diplomatic rift between Paris and Rabat to rethink their perceptions of France and the legacy of its protectorate in Morocco. For example, they should question the validity of the dominant historical narrative surrounding France’s colonization of Morocco.
As authors like Albert Memmi, Aime Cesaire, and Frantz Fanon have compellingly argued, the defining ruse of the colonizer has been to have convinced the colonized that they need him, that their present and future well-being depends on behaving and thinking like him.
It is therefore high time that Morocco changed its rhetoric vis-à-vis France and started evoking some of the darkest periods of the complex, disturbing relationship between the two countries. Nor should they shy away from loudly stating the need for France to issue an apology for despoiling Morocco of large swathes of its territory and annexing them to Algeria, which was then regarded as a full-fledged part of French territory.
For all these reasons, the time has come for Moroccans to own their history and be in the driving seat in shaping it. They should no longer leave the field empty for foreigners to write Morocco’s history in line with their orientations and political, religious, and ideological interests.
As I said in a previous article, for reasons related to history, to the economy as well as to the human ties between millions of Moroccans and French, the two countries cannot keep turning their back to the other.
| Aspect of Relationship | Description |
|---|---|
| Historical Ties | French protectorate between 1912 and 1956 has left a lasting legacy, including grievances and structural foundations for modern state. |
| Economic Interdependence | France is one of Morocco's most important trading partners with substantial French companies and investment in key sectors. |
| Cultural Connections | French language plays a central role in Moroccan society, especially in elite education and the professional world. |
| Political Alliances | France has been one of Morocco's strongest diplomatic allies in Europe and on the global stage. |
| Shared Security Interests | Both countries cooperate on counterterrorism efforts, intelligence sharing, and security issues in North Africa and the Sahel region. |
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