Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
Moha Ennaji
muslim moroccan migrants in europe
Copyright © Moha Ennaji, 2014.
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10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
To the memory of my dear father, Lahcen Ennaji
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Contents
Conclusion181
Notes189
References203
Index221
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List of Tables and Figures
Table 6.1 The major ten languages spoken in the UK, adapted
from the 2011 Census 109
Figure 9.1 Yearly transfers by Moroccans living abroad in
billions of US dollars 149
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Acknowledgments
A number of debts have been incurred while writing this book. The first
is to the Rockefeller Foundation’s Center in Bellagio, Italy, where I spent
four weeks in 2012 as an associate fellow. The book was then completed
during a second stay at California State University at Pomona during the
academic year 2013–2014. I am very grateful to Professors Patricia de
Freitas and Faiza Shereen for these opportunities. Professors Sandra Gifford
of Swinburne University of Technology, Australia; Kim Dovey of University
of Melbourne, Australia; and Yuen FoongKhong of Oxford University,
United Kingdom, offered invaluable support for which I am very grateful.
Sandra Gifford’s thoughtful comments improved the sociological framing
of the book and introduced me to valuable sources. Special words of thanks
are due to Al Amin Mazrui, Fatima Sadiqi, and anonymous reviewers who
devoted time to reading and commenting on earlier versions of this work.
I would like also to thank Ousseina Alidou, Abena Busia, and friends in other
departments at Rutgers University, who provided a rich and supportive envi-
ronment when I began working on this research project in 2007.
Several colleagues facilitated my research in Europe, and I am indebted
to all of them, including those I am unable to cite here. I would like to
mention in particular: Karen Vintges, Marjo Buitelaar, Fouad Laroui, Maati
Kabbal, Issa Ait Belize, Mino Vianello, Jan Jaap de Ruiter, Anass Bendrif,
Abderrahman El Aissati, Pilar Palacia, Ahmad Fuadi, Sonali Ojha, and
Antonio Damasco. The final product has benefited immensely from their
constructive remarks and suggestions.
My initial fieldwork and field trips were supported by funds from the
Hassan II Foundation for Moroccans Residing Abroad and from the South
North Center for Intercultural Dialogue and Migration Studies at Fès,
Morocco. The book would not have been written without the help and coop-
eration of all the interviewees and respondents who agreed to take part in this
research and share their migration experiences and views with me. Finally,
I am thankful to the support offered by my family during the seven years that
this book took me to complete.
Introduction
R
esearch on migration processes in Europe and the Mediterranean
region shows that the vast majority of Muslim immigrants are from
North Africa and the Middle East. This does not preclude the plural
and complex environment in which these immigrants move, live, and inte-
grate. Turks represent about half of the Middle Eastern people in Europe,
while North Africans constitute 37 percent (Moroccans alone 27 p ercent),
Iranians four percent, Iraqis three percent and Lebanese two percent
(Al-Shahi and Lawless 2005: 10; Daoud 2011: 44). After the Arab Spring,
Muslim immigrant populations from the region have continued to increase.
The immigrant flows from Syria, Lebanon, Egypt, Tunisia, and Libya have
increased dramatically due to civil wars, armed conflict, political v iolence,
repression, and religious discrimination.
As a case in point, the number of Moroccan workers in France more than
doubled between 1990 and 2012, from 573,000 to over 1.5 million (Daoud
2011: 29). Their main destinations have been France, Belgium, Spain, Italy,
the Netherlands, and Germany. Many of these Muslim immigrants are refu-
gees and asylum seekers, and about one third of them and their descendants
have acquired the citizenship of the European host countries. The highest
rates of naturalization are attested in the Scandinavian countries and the
Netherlands. In Sweden, 60 percent of the Middle East and North African
migrants obtained Swedish citizenship by 2001. In Norway, 80 percent of
Moroccans, 73 percent of Turks and 69 percent of Iranians had acquired
Norwegian citizenship by the same year (Al-Shahi and Lawless 2005: 14).
Europe’s reaction to these flows of immigrants has been to implement restric-
tive legislations, taking tougher measures to combat undocumented migra-
tion, and adopting tighter rules regarding family reunification or formation.
2 ● Muslim Moroccan Migrants in Europe
areas and from poor to rich destinations. He also believes that people migrate
first and foremost for economic reasons in order to improve their living con-
ditions (Ennaji and Sadiqi 2008: 6).
Despite its significance and input, the human capital theory has been crit-
icized by researchers and others for being too restrictive, primarily because
migration is not always a deliberate phenomenon (Almquist et al. 1978).
Undeniably, migration may be forced by the harsh socioeconomic circum-
stances in the home country or by civil wars and other tough political factors,
such as the case of exiles forced to migrate because they are persecuted in their
own country. Migration may also be caused by social motives such as mar-
riage or family reunification.
The second dominant theoretical approach, the “push-pull” theory of
migration, was developed by Lee (1966), among others. According to this
theory, migration is provoked by encouraging factors in the country of des-
tination and unhelpful ones in the country of origin, which may go beyond
economic aspects. This analysis is also adopted by geographers like Brown
and Moore (1970), who use “place utility” as a notion to argue that eco-
nomic, social, cultural, and personal factors are behind migration flows. For
instance, many Moroccan students prefer to pursue their university studies
in the EU because of its superior resources, and many stay there after gradu-
ation because they believe that opportunities in Europe are greater than in
Morocco.
It is commonly known that a number of theories have been elaborated
to determine and account for the causes of transnational migration. These
theories subdivide into two types: the first type attempts to determine the
motivation of migration and the second one tries to explain the perpetua-
tion of migration across space and time (Lim 1993; Chant 1992). I draw on
works of sociology or political theory to analyze the different discourses about
immigration, namely Pierre Bourdieu (1982), Joseph Carens (1992, 1995),
Frederick Whelan (1992), and Michael Walzer (1983).
Those researchers who have investigated immigration have usually
defended the conformist view on the subject, which insists that liberal states
are sovereign and have strong power over immigration rules. According to
this view, these states will normally admit immigrants whose skills, capabili-
ties, and experiences are thought to be in the national interest, but they are
ethically free to constrain immigration at their convenience.
However, a few liberal democrats have recently begun to confront this
conservative attitude by advancing two arguments. The first argument, put
forward strongly by Carens (1992), affirms that immigration-restrictive laws
are incoherent with fundamental liberal democratic values, namely freedom,
equal opportunity, and social justice. According to him, liberal states have a
Framing and Contextualizing Muslim Moroccan Migrants in Europe ● 5
moral obligation to adopt the policy of open borders, admitting all poten-
tial immigrants. The second argument, defended by Whelan (1992), Wilcox
(2007) and Whelan and Wilcox (1992: 3–39), maintains that developed
democratic countries have the moral obligation to welcome deprived immi-
grants as a gesture to social global injustices, such as poverty and oppression.
Defending the view of open borders, I argue in this book that affluent liberal
democratic societies have larger moral duties to admit immigrants than the
conservative position implies.
Unlike Carens, Walzer (1983) treats the question of culture and member-
ship in a society as basic to his theory of justice and argues that “states are
simply free to take strangers in (or not).” Walzer (ibid.) is not interested in the
search for universal principles and is merely preoccupied with the historical
and cultural specificity and membership in a given society. He believes that
issues of distributive justice should be tackled from the perspective of mem-
bership in a political community in which people enjoy a common culture
and a core of values about social justice.
As Carens (ibid.) argues, borders and guards are a way of keeping out
criminals, dissidents, and terrorists. However, the vast majority of immi-
grants are “ordinary, peaceful people, seeking only the opportunity to build
decent, secure lives for themselves and their families.”
I will argue, along the lines of Carens (1995), that borders ought to be
open and that people are free to migrate to, live, and work in another coun-
try, subject only to the restrictions that connect them to citizens in the host
country. I also argue, following Carens (ibid.), that international movement
from one country to another should be a human right. The state should safe-
guard the rights of citizens and non-citizens uniformly because it has “a de
facto monopoly over the enforcement of rights within its territory.” He goes
on to specify:
In particular, the need for some restriction would not justify any level of
restriction whatsoever or restrictions for other reasons, but only that level of
restriction essential to maintain public order. This would surely imply a much
less restrictive policy than the one currently in force which is shaped by so
many other considerations besides the need to maintain public order. It would
be an affirmation of the liberal character of the community and of its commit-
ment to principles of justice.
migrants, and played a major role (together with Spain) in controlling and
patrolling borders, on the side of Moroccan-Spanish borders.
Unlike in the past, when most Europeans defended immigration as
necessary for development, during today’s global economic crisis, many
European states have imposed restrictive policies to limit or stop migration
or have decided to stop regularizing the situation of undocumented migrants
across Europe. Detention centers have been created in Lampedusa in Italy,
and Patras in Greece, where undocumented immigrants (including children
and the elderly) are confined in appalling conditions before being deported
(Saaf et al., 2009).
Obviously, xenophobia and racism favor right-wing political currents,
which claim that the national identity of European countries is threatened
by the waves of migrants. This explains the proliferation of measures of
acculturation that some European countries, including Belgium and the
Netherlands, have used in the past few years, such as tests on language, values
(e.g., attitudes toward women and homosexuals), attachment to the host
country, and nature of ties with the home country. These tests are already
common practice in the United States, but in Europe this is a new approach
that may be helpful in the integration of migrants.
In the case of Morocco, the issue of immigration is dominated by the
idea of organizing relations between immigrants and the country of origin,
and creating migration structures, namely, the Council of the Moroccan
Community Abroad and the Ministry in Charge of Moroccans Living
Abroad. To keep the immigrants’ remittances flowing into the country, the
Moroccan government has implemented encouraging policies and measures
to incite Moroccan immigrants to invest in their country of origin. It has also
given them significant incentives such as low bank interest rates, low prices to
purchase land for investments, and facilities to transfer foreign currency into
Morocco (see chapter 9).
Finally, the question of the relationship between immigrants and the
home country is now made even more controversial and complex, since many
Muslim countries in the region compete to control the religious leadership
institutions of Muslims in Europe. Such is the case for Morocco, which has
been sending imams (religious teachers) to host countries like France and the
Netherlands in order to promote moderate Islam.
conflict, the Danish Cartoons Controversy, the Swiss ban of minarets, the scarf
and burqa (women’s body-covering garment) issue in France, the Arab Spring,
and the impact of the global financial crisis on migrants in Europe and beyond.
Throughout the EU, Moroccan immigrants and their descendants con-
tinue to be preoccupied as much by national politics as by a globalized form
of Islam. Little attention has been paid to the complex relationship between
militant elements and the wider Muslim communities residing in Europe.
Although the war on terror has made them feel increasingly insecure and
uncomfortable, it has arguably enabled the more politicized moderate parts
of the Islamic community to increase their role and influence, with question-
able consequences for these communities (Ramadan 2005, 2013).
Islam had long been considered non-European until very recently; today it
is the second-most widely practiced religion in Europe and visibly an internal
European phenomenon due to Muslim migrants from many different coun-
tries. In France and Italy, for instance, Islam is very present in public space,
and Muslims have built over 2,200 mosques and constituted hundreds of
associations, which has brought about a heated debate and sometimes anti-
Muslim campaigns (Daoud 2011: 60).
This book discusses the effects of the legislation banning headscarf wearing
on immigrants’ integration ten years after its implementation, and explores
the nature and place of Islam within the changing European political,
social, and cultural landscape. How is European identity being challenged
and transformed by Islam’s growing grassroots presence? Can one speak of
European Islam? What does the presence of Islam in Europe mean for the
EU’s world role or the global nature of Islam? The book deals with the rela-
tionship between Muslim immigrants in the EU and their countries of origin
(see in particular chapters 6, 7, 8, and 9). It comprises a comparative analysis
of the relationship between Islam and the EU states, and the place of religion
and secularization. It also addresses the issues of integration and identity of
Moroccan youth born and raised in Europe.
Several books have been published on the issue of Muslim North African
migration and about the headscarves problem in France. I mention only a few
here that have been central to this study: Bowen (2007), G uénif-Souilamas
(2000), Silverstein and Crawford (2004), Venel (2004), Gresh and
Vidal (2004), Fetzer and Soper (2005), Tietze (2002), and Al-Shahi and
Lawless (2005), and Daoud (2011).
Daoud (2011) shows that Moroccan migration has changed dramati-
cally over the last two decades, in the sense that it is rejuvenated, feminized,
and amplified. Moroccan migrants have the double characteristic of being
strongly established in the EU and at the same time very attached to their
home country, where their economic impact is remarkable because of the
Framing and Contextualizing Muslim Moroccan Migrants in Europe ● 9
huge funds transfers. Built on interviews and the results of two surveys, this
book discusses the main problems experienced by migrant Moroccans in
Europe, including xenophobia and Islamophobia.
Several studies have reflected on the issue of Islam and Islamophobia in
the EU in the gloomy environment of the war on terror and its aftermath. For
instance, Phillip (2009) argues that Europe has been too much focused on
problems, but without providing solutions. He questions what has come to
be regarded as the “Islamic problem”—which is the prevalent misperception
of Muslim communities in Europe as a disturbing problematic minority—by
wondering what these Muslims have to be optimistic about nowadays, and
how non-Muslims in the host countries might share this hope. Phillip (ibid.)
believes that there are good reasons for hope in many sectors and walks of
life, and rejects many of the misconceptions and prejudices made against
Muslims in Europe. For him, the amplified inspection of Muslim identi-
ties has occurred in a racist environment, where Muslims are targeted and
linked with new forms of “imperialism.” The book states that new “divisions
between Muslims and others echo colonial ideas of black and white, colo-
nized and colonizer, within practices of divide and rule.”
Aspects of multiculturalism and citizenship are discussed in their interac-
tion with Muslim communities in Europe by Modood, Zapata-Barrero, and
Triandafyllidou (2006). This collective book examines the European facets of
multiculturalism and immigration, arguing that political discourse of multi-
culturalism and resulting European immigration policies have been basically
influenced by the American model, and that this matter must be discussed;
the European situation is entirely distinct because ethnic and religious groups
challenge liberalism and existing notions of citizenship.
Providing a new and original view of multiculturalism and citizenship
in Europe today, this book is based on case studies that explore the scope
of European types of multiculturalism, in which some countries attend to
multicultural issues promptly while others lag behind, because they are busy
addressing more vital problems of migration such as acceptance, integration,
and undocumented immigration.
Ramadan (2005) argues that “while the media are focused on radical
Islam, Muslims actively seek ways to live in harmony with their faith within a
Western context.” The book’s goal is to create an independent Western Islam,
anchored not in the traditions of Islamic countries but in the cultural reality
of the West. Ramadan (ibid.) contends that Muslims in Europe can remain
faithful to their Islamic faith while contributing to the public life of Western
secular societies. The author provides a unique vision of a new Muslim iden-
tity, which discards once and for all the perceived idea that Islam must be
defined in opposition to the West.
10 ● Muslim Moroccan Migrants in Europe
In his 2013 book, Ramadan argues that to find the middle path between
assimilating with the host country and living as a Muslim, one should know
which part of one’s behavior is culturally based (and therefore negotiable to
a certain degree) and which part is Islamic/religious (and therefore not nego-
tiable). Ramadan (ibid.) shows that it is not impossible to live as a practicing
Muslim in multi-faith, pluralistic European nation states.
The present book aims to do something different, however, which is to
zero in on Moroccan Muslim immigrants, chiefly in France, Belgium, Spain,
Italy, the Netherlands, Germany, and England, and elicit how they suffer
from marginalization and Islamophobia, on the one hand, and on the other
hand how they contribute economically, politically, and culturally to the host
countries, as well as to the country of origin.
When talking about Muslim immigrants in Europe, one understands,
through the different authors and approaches, that the foremost challenges are
neither religious nor ethnic, and that it is high time one addressed issues such
as bigotry, distrust, unemployment, racial discrimination, and empowerment.
The West and Muslims will only be able to create true “spaces of hope” by
addressing the real issues, and that is why this book is relevant (Phillip 2009).
Methodology
The main approach in this book is qualitative, for it essentially involves the
collection and analysis of qualitative data on the Moroccan community in the
EU, which I gathered mostly during field trips to Europe between 2006 and
2013. In all, 116 structured and semi-structured interviews were conducted
to complement the data collection, in addition to participant observation.
The interviewed migrants were selected from different age groups, educa-
tion levels, and socioeconomic backgrounds, taking into account their status,
class, and gender. I had interviews with 69 male and 47 female participants
who were mostly intellectuals, students, businessmen and women, members
of associations, unemployed people, mothers of first and second generations,
and workers. Their ages ranged from 17 to 76. I also interviewed several
stakeholders involved in the migration debate to represent occurring events.
I interviewed many Moroccan migrants and their descendents face to
face and, in some cases, over the telephone. I used conversations (cafe chats,
casual conversations, Internet chats, arranged conversations, etc.) to elicit
their attitudes and ideas about migration. Several first-, second- and third-
generation individuals were interviewed in the host country and in Morocco
during vacation time. The language of communication was French, Berber,
or Arabic. The testimonies contained in this book are based on contributions
of participants in the interviews.
Framing and Contextualizing Muslim Moroccan Migrants in Europe ● 11
are not a homogeneous group, and that their living experiences are deter-
mined by factors like duration of residence in the host country, gender, socio-
economic background, and level of education. Their situation has suffered a
setback since the 9/11 events, especially with the rise of Islamophobia and the
negative effects of the global economic crisis.
the public debates and policies about minorities and multiculturalism, which
are often regarded with confusion and are subject to misinterpretation.
Identity and citizenship issues are debated in chapter 8, which focuses
on Moroccan migrants as cultural intermediaries between their country of
origin and the host country, and reflects on the identity crisis and citizenship
policies that have recently marked these migrants. It proposes promoting a
cultural strategy to the issue of migration and an efficient management of
migratory flows based on the framework of close cooperation between coun-
tries on both shores of the Mediterranean.
Migrants’ contributions to social change and to development in the host
and home country are discussed in chapter 9. It argues that Moroccans par-
ticipate actively in social change, public life, and development in both Europe
and Morocco. Their immense and varied contribution to economic progress,
growth, and intercultural dialogue is a good argument for the extension of
citizenship and respect of their rights.
Chapter 10 highlights success stories among the Moroccan community
in Europe. It focuses on prominent writers and artists, and underscores the
vigorous participation and successes of Moroccans at the political and insti-
tutional levels in Europe, with the hope to stimulate the debate and inspire
those responsible for migration policies and integration, as well as grassroots
organizations and institutions in Europe and North Africa, and members of
the Muslim community at large.
PART I
T
his part sets the scene and contextualizes the topic of Moroccan
migration then and now, the kinds of migration, and the push/pull
factors, facilitators, and constraints. It includes two chapters that dis-
cuss the history and present-day situation of Muslim Moroccan migrants in
Europe. It discusses the origins and causes of this kind of international migra-
tion, as well as its current characteristics and challenges.
Espousing a postcolonial historical approach, chapter 1 reviews the vari-
ous causes of legal and illegal migration from North Africa to Europe, and
discusses the different experiences of migration waves to France, Spain, Italy,
Belgium, Italy, Germany, and the United Kingdom.
Chapter 2, which assesses the current situation of immigrants and their
descendents, reveals that diversity is what characterizes Moroccan migrants
in Europe, and that they form a heterogeneous ethnic group living very
diverse experiences that are shaped by factors like their level of education,
duration of residence in the host country, socioeconomic background, and
age and gender. The chapter shows that Moroccan Muslim migrants have
suffered a setback since the 9/11 terrorist attacks, chiefly with the increase of
Islamophobia.
Chapter 1
T
he history of Moroccan migration to Europe is one of unexpected
developments and unplanned effects. This is true of colonial migra-
tion, labor migration, and most lately, undocumented migration.
Adopting a postcolonial historical approach, this chapter reviews the various
features of Moroccan migration to Europe and tentatively draws a few paral-
lels from these experiences by covering, in particular, the cases of migration
to France, Spain, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, and the United
Kingdom.
Many researchers have wrongly argued that European countries intention-
ally called for colonial migrants in order to meet the demands of the postwar
economic growth. The reality is that these countries recruited the guest work-
ers from ex-colonies only after failing to secure white workers from the rest
of Europe (Hansen 2003). The late 1950s and 1960s were characterized by a
great demand for North African workers in Western Europe.
North African workers migrated because they were needed for the recon-
struction of Europe and the expansion of its economy. The migration of thou-
sands of Moroccans, Algerians, and Tunisians has been initiated by European
countries, namely France, Belgium, Germany, and the Netherlands, accord-
ing to bilateral agreements signed after the North African countries gained
independence.
Initially, European trade unions were extremely mistrustful of labor
migration, as they worried that it would lead to the lowering of native work-
ers’ wages. But eventually, European governments promised the guest work-
ers the same benefits as the natives, and guest workers were later incorporated
into the unions. It was assumed that the immigrant workers would return
to their home countries once they were no longer needed. However, most of
them ended up settling in Europe and subsequently brought their families
18 ● Muslim Moroccan Migrants in Europe
Migration to France
The first Moroccans who migrated to France were from the Souss region in
the south of Morocco, and had been recruited by the factories of Nantes in
1909. By 1966, Moroccan migrants from the south constituted 50 percent
of the overall migrant population in France (Daoud 2011: 39). During colo-
nization, a significant number of Moroccans moved to France. From 1914
to 1918, there were more than 35,500 Moroccans working in agriculture
and mining in France, replacing French men sent to the front, and about
40,000 Moroccan men were recruited by the French army (Khachani 2004:
15; Daoud 2003: 38). The Moroccan soldiers were from the Middle Atlas
and the High Atlas. In all, 200,000 North African men fought in the French
army during World War I.
Moroccan Migration History: Origins and Causes ● 19
Migration to Spain
Along with France, Spain is one of the preferred countries of destina-
tion by Moroccan migrants. Migration to Spain goes back to the colonial
period, which started in 1912. Even though about 40,000 Moroccans from
the northern area of Rif fought in the ranks of General Franco during the
Spanish civil war (1936–1939), it turned out that migration to Spain was
extremely slight. Spain was economically poor, as it was isolated from the rest
of Europe under the Franco regime, and until the 1970s was itself a sending
country, as many Spanish workers migrated to France and Germany for bet-
ter economic opportunities (de Haas 2009).6 The number of Moroccans in
Spain was below 10,000 in 1975.7
22 ● Muslim Moroccan Migrants in Europe
During the late 1970s, the Spanish economy grew considerably, and this
attracted many Moroccan workers. It wasn’t until the mid-1980s that Spain
began to receive larger numbers of Moroccan migrants. Up until 1991,
Moroccans did not need a special visa to enter Spain. However, there was a
growing issue with undocumented migrants from Morocco, and a boat full
of illegal immigrants was intercepted in 1989. As a consequence, the visa
requirement was imposed in 1991 to comply with the Schengen Agreement
of 1985.8 That year, there were probably 200,000 undocumented immi-
grants in Spain, most of whom were from Morocco. In the early 1990s, Spain
organized an amnesty plan whereby around 130,000 undocumented immi-
grants were legalized and given work permits. There have been other periods
of general amnesty for illegal migrants, allowing them to reside and work
legally in Spain.9
In 2005, the number of Moroccan migrants in Spain reached 400,000.
In 2008, this number jumped to 671,669 according to the survey by the
Institut National des Statistiques et de l’Economie, but today it is impossible
to know the exact number of Moroccans in Spain due to the large number of
undocumented immigrants.10
Migration to Belgium
Belgium, like its European neighbors, has received pre- and post-war
Moroccan labor migrants (or so-called guest workers) and their families,
whose children are forming an emerging second generation. The history of
Moroccan migration to Belgium goes back to the period after World War II,
when Belgium needed North Africans to work in its coal and heavy-metal
mines to expand the country’s economy. Moroccan migration to Belgium saw
its peak in the 1960s, when the country extended the scope of labor recruit-
ment to non-European countries.
Most Moroccans initially came to Belgium as laborers. Many stayed and
subsequently brought their families over to reside with them. The commu-
nity increased in number over the years, especially through family reunification
and new family formation, as many Moroccan-Belgians marry from Morocco,
thus creating a continuous flow of immigration and increasing the number of
Moroccan migrants in the country. The pre-war immigration to Belgium had
been almost exclusively white, as most immigrants were Catholic and European,
and mainly from Portugal, Spain, Italy, and Greece. In contrast, the post-war
immigration was much more diverse, seeing a great number of non-Europeans
and non-Christians from North Africa and Turkey (Lesthaeghe 2000).
Additionally, the employment of immigrants diversified, as workers were
contracted into different industries and were hired for building, service and
Moroccan Migration History: Origins and Causes ● 23
manual jobs (Martens and Moulaert 1985). The economic crisis of the 1970s
into the late 1980s led to the closing of the mining industries, a rise in immi-
grant unemployment, and the end of migrant worker recruitment. The crisis
in Belgium was more unexpected and overwhelming than it was in France
or Germany (Lesthaeghe 2000). Since then, family reunification and forma-
tion became the major source of long-term immigration and replenishment
of North African immigrant communities in Belgium. In 1974, Belgium
imposed strict conditions on the entry of foreign labor, but remained one of
the most liberal countries in Europe concerning family reunion policy.
Today, the Moroccan migrant population can be classified into three
major waves (Lesthaeghe 2000): the first wave of guest workers arrived in
the 1950s, 1960s, and early 1970s; the second wave were family members
who joined the first generation in the late 1970s and in the 1980s; the sec-
ond generation were their children who were born or grew up in Belgium;
and the third wave were mostly partners of the second generation who con-
tinued to migrate to Belgium through “cross-border” marriages (Phalet and
Swyngedouw 2003).11
The 1991 census counted 153,000 Moroccans in Belgium (Phalet and
Swyngedouw 2003).12 With the shortage of employment, integration of
Moroccan immigrants became difficult, adding to the negative and xeno-
phobic feelings of the Belgian people toward Muslim migrants. However, the
topic of migrants’ rights and reform of migration policies became part of the
national debate in the 1990s (Foblets and Pang 1999).
With the rise to power of the extreme Right in Flanders in 1991, after an
electoral campaign that effectively exploited anti-immigrant attitudes, and in
direct reaction to the urban riots staged by immigrant youth in Brussels, the
Belgian government agreed to the necessity of reforms and national integra-
tion policies (Phalet aand Swyngedouw 2003).
However, the Belgian government and parliament approved a different
type of integration policy than the Germans or the British. Whereas the latter
opted for multiculturalism and respect of diversity, in Belgium, integration
meant protection from discrimination; social integration; and adaptation of
migrants to the Belgian culture and way of life, but permitting them to prac-
tice rituals and celebrate cultural events in the family and community circles
only (Lucassen 2005: Part I).
Unfortunately, the complex structure of Belgium as a bi-national state
made the enacting and implementation of integration laws ineffective because
of the political tensions and attitudes at the local, regional, national, and
European levels (Foblets and Pang 1999). The consecutive legislative reforms
made since the 1980s have remarkably led to more integration of Moroccan
Muslim migrants, as it became less difficult to obtain Belgian citizenship by
24 ● Muslim Moroccan Migrants in Europe
Migration to Italy
Migration to Italy is a relatively recent phenomenon. Since the 1970s, and
particularly since the 1980s, Italy has been transformed from a country of
emigrants into an immigration destination. The first wave of Moroccan immi-
grants arrived in Italy in these periods as a result of the restrictive measures
adopted by the countries of Northern Europe, namely France and Germany,
especially after the oil crisis in 1973. They came to fill a need in the service
sector and in agriculture.
Most of the Moroccan migrants came from the cities of Khouribga, Fkih
Ben Saleh and Beni Mellal. They worked in agriculture, in services, and as
street vendors of carpets and handicrafts. Then they moved from southern
to northern Italy because of better employment opportunities in the north.
In 2002, 172,834 Moroccans had a residence permit; that is, 11.4 percent
of the total population of migrants in Italy.14 Most of the Moroccan immi-
grant community resides in Milan and Turin. Approximately 60 percent of
them have settled in three Italian regions: Lombardy, Piedmont, and Emilia-
Romagna. As a result of the process of family reunification that began in the
1990s, women make up 40 percent of that population. A large number of
Moroccan migrants have entered Italy illegally. After 2003, those prevented
from entering the EU illegally through Spain—which has reinforced its
Moroccan Migration History: Origins and Causes ● 25
Migration to Germany
After World War II, Germany’s economy grew to the extent that the country
called for North African labor migration. The first Moroccan migrants left for
Germany in the 1950s and the second wave (18,000, from the Rif region in
northern Morocco) in 1962 after Morocco signed a contract with Germany
about labor migration. Most of them worked in coal mines, but because of
the global economic crisis in 1973, Germany canceled this contract.
The cause of this migration was essentially economic, yet there was also
a tradition of migration in the Rif region. In the early 1980s, many men
from the region of Nador and Al Hoceima, migrated to Germany to work
in construction, textiles, services, and the car industry. Some of them found
jobs through connections and family members who were already working in
Germany. In many cases, they did the work that no German national wanted.
Migration to Germany was initially circular, as 84 percent of male migrants
were married but only 5 percent took their wives and children with them
(Bossard 1979). When recruitment stopped in 1973, ending temporary migra-
tion, many Moroccans stayed in Germany and arranged for their spouses and
children to join them. This gave rise to a new group of immigrants and to the
expansion of the Moroccan community in Germany over a short period of time.
Moroccan men often brought their wives and younger children to Germany
first, followed by children of school or college age once it became obvious
that they were going to reside permanently in Germany. Family reunification
increased because of new child-benefit and tax laws, which specified that only
children living in Germany qualified for these benefits (Hansen 2003).
Family reunification was followed by a new type of migration created
by Moroccans resident in Germany marrying their partners who lived in
Morocco. This tendency was motivated by the will to evade immigration
restrictions (Berriane and Mohamed 2008).
Since the end of the 1980s, a growing number of Moroccan students have
traveled to Germany to study. Moroccans today are practically the largest
group of African students in Germany. According to the German Federal
Statistical Office, 8,213 Moroccan nationals were enrolled as students in
the 2005–2006 academic year, most of whom were graduate students of
Moroccan Migration History: Origins and Causes ● 27
Causes of Migration
There are various reasons for migration. According to Lahlou (2005), poverty
and unemployment are the main causes. When the economic levels of Spain
and Morocco were the same in the 1960s, Moroccans did not immigrate
to Spain. “But now the economic difference between Spain and Morocco is
20 to 1” (Lahlou 2005).22
“Morocco’s gross national product per inhabitant is just $3,600—hardly
a sixth of Spain’s. The unemployment rate, which is around 20 percent in
urban zones, is double that of its northern neighbor,” according to Lahlou
(ibid.). There are also huge discrepancies in healthcare and social opportuni-
ties. Nearly half of the Moroccans are illiterate, whereas 97 percent of Spanish
people are literate.23
Poverty, unemployment, the huge social gap between the rich and the
poor, and the discrepancy between the incomes in Morocco and in the coun-
tries of destination are all among the push factors. Abderrahman (39, taxi
driver in Montpellier) explains: “I migrated to France because I had a dream
to live in Europe and improve my situation.”
In 2004, the overall unemployment rate reached 13 percent in Morocco
and was higher among youth and graduates (30 percent), a situation that wors-
ened with the world financial crisis (Guennouni 2004: 28). One of the conse-
quences of this crisis was the considerable increase in migration flows toward
Europe, North America, and the Persian Gulf countries (Ennaji 2010b).
Other causes of migration are historical and geographical. The fact that
many migrants choose France and Spain as their destination can be accounted
for by the historical links with both countries, which had colonized Morocco
for decades. Many Moroccan immigrants choose France and Spain for lin-
guistic and cultural reasons, as they feel less culture shock and less uprooted
in France, Belgium, and Spain than in any other Western country. The prox-
imity of Europe is of paramount importance, given the fact that Morocco is
only 7 miles away from the European continent. Morocco is the gate to both
Moroccan Migration History: Origins and Causes ● 31
Europe and Africa, and it has long been at the crossroads of many cultures
and civilizations (Ennaji 2005, ch. 1).
There are also psychological and cultural reasons behind migration. Many
young people are keen on migration because of the influence of migrants
returning to Morocco each summer vacation in beautiful cars, boasting their
success and social promotion in Europe. The national media also influence
the youth as they present migrants as successful individuals who live com-
fortably in the host countries. For example, Moroccan television programs
like Noujoum Al Hijra (Migration Stars) and Les Marocains du Monde, inter-
view Moroccan migrants who have “made it” abroad. Such programs directly
encourage Moroccans to think about migration as an alternative (Ennaji
2012a). Because they feel threatened, the ruling elite in Morocco encourage
young unemployed people to migrate in order to make a living; otherwise,
they will constitute a political and security threat to the regime (El Baroudi
1989: 86).
As mentioned above, many Moroccans migrate to join their partner
abroad or to study. Another motivation for migrating is the existence of
networks and traffickers in the country of destination, which make a for-
tune from migrant trafficking (Khachani 2004: 29). Many interviewed
migrants also claimed that they had migrated to have dignity, a decent life,
and a better future.24 Abdelwahab (a 42-year-old Moroccan immigrant liv-
ing in Belgium) said that his emigration twelve years ago was due to feeling
exploited and underpaid by the owner of the company he worked for in
Morocco:
I was not satisfied with the backward way of life in Moroccan society, in addi-
tion to the lack of freedom and of democracy. I am impressed with rational
thinking and civilized behavior in the West.
When asked if they regret their decision to migrate, most of the respon-
dents answered that they had no regrets. “Definitely, if I had to go back,
32 ● Muslim Moroccan Migrants in Europe
I would do it again; anyway, it’s destiny, God’s will,” said Younes, a 55-year-
old immigrant in Italy. While Abderrazak (39, resident in the Netherlands)
answered:
Without hesitation I can say that the decision to migrate was right, given the
circumstances in which I lived; the poverty and the exploitation were unbeliev-
able . . . the thing that I regret is that I had not migrated earlier; my friends
who have university degrees in Morocco tell me I was lucky because things in
Morocco are deteriorating.
Even if I had had good financial conditions, I would have had migrated any-
way because I always wanted to live in a democratic state, and in a free society,
with civilized people.
“In Morocco,” says Karima (28, nurse in Spain), “women are not respected
and more reforms are necessary.” Yassine (34, worker in Italy) responds that
“the Moroccan government must have the courage to confront the real prob-
lems and to create jobs for the youth.”
Thus, each Moroccan migrant has a story to tell. One of the results of this
study is undoubtedly the multiplicity of aspects and characteristics of the
Moroccan migrant community. The sociodemographic data collected reveal
Moroccan Migration History: Origins and Causes ● 33
that the reasons behind migration are basically economic, but also social (in
relation to family reunification), geographic, political, cultural, and histori-
cal. As we shall see in chapter 5, thanks to migration, family structure and
identity have, on the whole, undergone significant changes toward greater
diversity (Saaf et al. 2009).
Conclusion
Historically, international migration in North Africa started with the recruit-
ment of Moroccan soldiers to partake in World Wars I and II (Daoud 2003).
This first migration wave was the outcome of a specific geopolitical and eco-
nomic context, as Morocco was under French occupation. Including soldiers,
most migrants of this era originated from southern Morocco and targeted
France to take up jobs that Frenchmen either left to serve in the army or
were reluctant to take. After World War II, most migrants (mainly soldiers)
returned to Morocco, as Europe’s economy during this period was in a deep
recession (Chattou 1998).
By the mid-1950s, European countries were experiencing economic
growth and had a high level of demand for labor that could no longer be
satisfied domestically or by guest-worker migration from Eastern Europe.
Most European countries had turned first to southern Europe, namely
Portugal, Spain, and Italy, thinking that this type of migrant could adapt
to the Western European society more easily than the Muslim Moroccans
(Hansen 2003).
A huge wave of migrants from both southern and northern Morocco tar-
geted Western Europe in the mid-1960s. Most of these young migrants came
from the Rif rural areas and spoke Berber as their mother tongue. Many left
Morocco illegally, but the host countries were tolerant because they needed
manpower, and jobs were available. Afterward, migration changed from tem-
porary to permanent and involved young people from both urban and rural
zones. As most of these migrants were single, family reunification and forma-
tion consequently attracted more migrants.
By the early 1970s however, vast numbers of Moroccan migrants arrived
in France and Germany despite the slowing economy. In the lack of assurance
that guest workers could easily return to France or Germany when they wanted
to, most migrant workers decided to remain in the host country. With the
support of churches, non-government organizations (NGOs), and sympathetic
academic activists, they secured a number of legal judgments guaranteeing
their right to remain. After 1973, all European countries drastically reduced
labor migration or simply stopped it altogether. By then, however, thousands
34 ● Muslim Moroccan Migrants in Europe
A
s we saw in chapter 1, Moroccan migrants in Europe are not a homo-
geneous group. Their living conditions vary according to status, age,
gender, level of education, and occupation. Their situation is ren-
dered more complex by factors like duration of residence in the host country,
their socioeconomic situation, and their immigration background.
As mentioned in the previous chapter, Moroccans have migrated primarily
for economic reasons, and the majority, but not all, are practicing Muslims
(Kepel 1987; Daoud 2011: 122). Despite their naturalization as Europeans,
even second and third generations are still considered immigrants threatening
security and social cohesion (Begag 2011). Many are either unemployed or
obliged to do manual work to survive because they are considered unedu-
cated or under-qualified. As a result, many of them have experienced social
and economic deprivation.
This chapter explores the living and working conditions of Muslim
Moroccan migrants in Europe, their aspirations, challenges, and concerns. It
investigates their demographic characteristics, situation in Francophone and
non-Francophone host countries, resilience in the face of discrimination and
economic hardship, and positive attitude to their migration projects.
Demography
According to the 2013 survey by the Ministry in Charge of the Moroccans
Living Abroad, about 3.7 million Moroccans live abroad (roughly 10 percent
of the country’s population), with 1.1 million in France alone. Women make
up 48 percent of the Moroccan migrant community, and 70 percent of the
community is less than 45 years old, while 29 percent of them were born in
the host country.1
36 ● Muslim Moroccan Migrants in Europe
Although they are scattered all over the world, it is in the European Union
that most Moroccan migrants live (84.4 percent), the majority of whom
are based in France, Italy, Belgium, Spain, the Netherlands, and Germany.
Moroccan migration has evolved over the years; today’s migrants are mostly
young, and more and more women migrate on their own or as a result of
family reunification (Chekir et al. 2004: 244).
According to the landmark study Immigrants and descendants of immigrants
in France, undertaken by the French newspaper Le Figaro and published on
October 10, 2012, nearly 654,000 immigrants born in Morocco had settled
in France in 2008, representing 12 percent of the entire immigrant population
(5.3 million immigrants in all). This represents 8 percent of the total population
of France. France hosts the largest community of Moroccans, which is today the
second-largest community of immigrants, after the Algerians (36 percent). Their
number has nearly tripled since 1975, when Moroccan immigration accounted
for 6 percent of the immigrant population.2 The study also reveals that the direct
descendants of Moroccan immigrants, those born in and residing in France with
at least one immigrant parent, outnumber immigrants. They total 660,000,
nearly 10 percent of the population of descendants of immigrants (6.7 million);
this last category represents 11 percent of the population of France.3
Spain is home to Europe’s second-largest Moroccan community. Spain and
Italy, which have become destination countries for Moroccans in recent years,
host a large population of Moroccans (Spain 547,000, Italy 379,000). As a
consequence of the earlier labor migration agreements, a considerable number
of Moroccans also reside in the Netherlands (278,000), Belgium (285,000),
and Germany (130,000). A little more than 26,000 of them live in the United
Kingdom (figures of the Moroccan Ministry in Charge of Moroccans Living
Abroad). Exactly how many Moroccans live in Europe is difficult to pinpoint
given the important number of undocumented migrants.4
There are variations in the figures provided by the Eurostat, and the numbers
given by the Ministry in Charge of Moroccans Living Abroad. According to
the statistics provided by the latter, in 2012 there were 2,185,894 Moroccans
in Europe.5 Moroccan migrants occupy the second position after the Turks
in Europe, and they are the largest North African community in Europe.6
Moroccans represent the largest Muslim community in the Netherlands.7 In
Belgium, they represented 12.4 percent of the foreign population in 2012, in
Italy 11.5 percent, and 14 percent in Spain.8
Large-scale family reunification has led to permanent migration, and an
increasing number of Moroccan immigrants in Europe. Between 1973 and
1993, the registered immigrant population with Moroccan citizenship in the
Netherlands, Belgium, France, and Germany multiplied from 400,000 to
around 1 million (de Haas 2007b).
How Moroccans Live in Europe ● 37
The report stated that it is “alarming” that the problems seem to persist with
the second generation.11 The research also revealed that, whereas most sec-
ond-generation Moroccan immigrants went to mosques less often than their
parents, the tendency was the opposite in the Netherlands, where half of the
immigrants’ children said they visited the mosque regularly, 4 percent more
than the first generation.
What is worrying is that 40 percent of respondents answered that they had
been jobless for over three years. Unemployment is particularly high among
Moroccans in the Netherlands (38 percent), as well as in Spain (61 percent),
and Italy (41 percent).12 In a report by the Dutch-Moroccan Monitor (2011),
crime was widespread in the districts where Moroccan immigrants lived, and
the youth crime rate attained 50 percent. The report also showed that most of
the Moroccans charged with criminal activities were born in the Netherlands.
The report, which was the result of the survey carried out by the Rotterdam
Institute for Social Policy Research, studied the extent and characteristics of
crime among the Dutch-Moroccan community in 22 municipalities in the
Netherlands. Both reports reveal that the youth of Moroccan descent have
not fully integrated into Dutch society, due to the inadequacy of the Dutch
immigration policies and to the failure of Moroccan parents to instill in their
children the values of hard work, tolerance, dialogue, and good citizenship
(Bilgili and Weyel 2009).
The Dutch journalist Fleur Jurgens in her book The Moroccan Drama
(Het Marokkanendrama) heavily criticizes the Dutch long-standing model
of multiculturalism for failing to provide solutions. She puts the blame on
two groups: the Moroccan migrants, who claim the Dutch are responsible
for their conditions, and leftist intellectuals and multiculturalists, who depict
Moroccan immigrants as the powerless victims of an inequitable state. The
Dutch government has lately claimed that it will discard the old form of mul-
ticulturalism that has encouraged Moroccans and other Muslim immigrants
to erect “a parallel society within the Netherlands.”13
Less than half of the Moroccans I interviewed in the Netherlands, Spain,
France, and Italy said Europeans had unfavorable attitudes toward them.
By contrast, most second-generation interviewees in Germany and Belgium
believed that they were regarded relatively favorably.
Brussels Region. Other Moroccans reside in the cities of Antwerp, Liege, and
Charleroi; and in the provinces of Hainaut and Limburg.
According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and
Development (OECD), Moroccan immigrants have unemployment rates
much higher than those of native Belgians. Both activists and the media have
reported cases in which Moroccans with university degrees could not find
employment for years, and their job and apartment applications were turned
down because of their Muslim names.
Immigration policy and political discourse have become more focused
on economic matters since October 2007, when Christian democrats and
liberals agreed on sturdy migration policies. Under this agreement, migrants
from outside Europe will be able to take jobs only if there is a shortage of
European candidates. It has also imposed tough standards concerning
income, language, and time requirements as immigration criteria.
A report released by the Centre for Equal Opportunities and Opposition
to Racism prepared by the Universities of Antwerp and Leuven (2006) stated
that stricter immigration laws had rendered immigrant women from Turkey and
Morocco distinctly underprivileged and vulnerable to abuse by their husbands.
The study also revealed that Moroccan married women who arrived in Belgium
in 2000 were the most socioeconomically deprived, as only one-third of them
had found a job three years later, compared to higher rates for Eastern Europeans.
Large regional differences were found in the rates of poverty,showing the
Moroccan community in Wallonia as the worst-off among Moroccans in
Belgium (Saaf et al. 2009). Women and youth remained marginalized in the
labor market because of segregation, lack of qualifications, or male pressure
on women to stay at home.
Kamal (36 years old) worked for three years in a ceramics factory in
Milan. He has a BA in biology from Morocco, but could not find a better
job. Unfortunately, one day an accident in the factory left his hands severely
injured, and he had to be hospitalized for a month, after which he was
expelled from his job without compensation. He complained:
I suffered a lot because of racism and discrimination. I was in hospital for four
weeks because I needed to have surgery. The factory covered the hospital fees
but that’s all. After a month, I wanted to go back to my work, but the boss said
no way, because my position had been filled by another worker. I wasn’t even
thanked nor compensated for my three years of hard work. I talked to the local
trade union about it, but I was told they could not do anything.
Personally, I’d prefer to return to Morocco, but if I do, I’ll have to reimburse
everything I received since I lost my job two years ago, as I have been living on
the dole since then. If I leave Spain, I have to reimburse 14,300 euros.
immigrant, Mustapha (34 years old) was jobless after the lumber mill he’d
worked in for five years went out of business. He moved in with friends and
was unemployed for over one year. Every month he had to go to the local
authorities to have his passport stamped to prove that he was still in Spain.
“I live with a Moroccan friend, and thanks to him I survive here; without his
support, I would have returned to Morocco long ago.”
Many migrants had two families to support—their own in Spain and their
large family back home. This situation was further complicated by the lack of
income, health care, and insurance. Asked whether Moroccan immigrants were
marginalized and discriminated against by the Spanish government, Nadia El
Othmani, president of the Amel Association for immigrants in Madrid stated:
Everybody is surely suffering from the crisis, Spaniards and immigrants; yet, we
need to sensitize the Moroccan community about their rights and obligations,
and we have to defend our rights.
Raouf (62 years old), has been residing in Murcia, Spain, for 20 years. He
is a businessman who owns a café, a supermarket, and a few apartments that
he rents to immigrants. He said in the interview:
I barely pay the workers, but I don’t make any money. Real estate has decreased
in value, too: my house which cost me 200,000 euros six years ago, now would
cost between 50,000 and 60,000 euros only. I just can’t sell my house so cheap
and go back to Morocco. Worse, I have to pay over 30,000 euros of debts and
taxes. The government is exploiting the crisis by putting pressure on migrants
to return home; if they manage to push even 25 percent of migrants to return,
that will be a good achievement for the government.
The Spanish economy needs migrants; we need guest workers to build the
country again; but there is a crisis now affecting everyone, Spanish people and
immigrants. Even for the Spanish it’s hard to find work, let alone Moroccan
immigrants. The difference perhaps is that the Spanish can get support from
their families, but not the immigrants.
Driss (52 years old), who is a wealthy developer in the south of Spain, used
to own exchange offices in many parts of Spain. Now he invests in real estate.
He studied law in the United States, and has a long experience in finance and
business management. In the interview, he states:
My business has been growing very well until the crisis started, and then real
estate collapsed. I own several apartments which I am selling. I have actually
How Moroccans Live in Europe ● 45
sold three in the last two months. People are buying, even some Moroccan
immigrants and mostly Spanish people are buying real estate, because this is a
golden opportunity.
Moroccan students also have serious problems, as the tuition fees have
increased from 400 euros to between 3,000 euros for humanities programs
and 6,000 euros for science and technology schools. Hassan, a biology stu-
dent in Madrid, declared in the interview:
Before the crisis, the Spanish government provided help and support to Moroc-
can students and many facilities to study, especially engineering, pharmacy, and
medicine. This help is now impossible, and many services have been reduced
at the University of Madrid, where I study because of austerity measures.21
Return Migration
There are no reliable figures on the recent return migration to Morocco, and
the current data are too fragmented to provide an objective idea. The most
significant data, however, are based on the general population census of 2004,
which revealed that the number of returnees had reached 315,000 between
1994 and 2004, mostly from France (Khachani 2006b). One of the most
recent studies conducted by Migration Retour au Maghreb (MIREM) in
2008 shows that migrants who returned of their own free will were likely to
invest in Morocco and unlikely to re-emigrate.23
To the question whether they intended to return to Morocco and reset-
tle there, many interviewees said they would return after retirement. Malika
46 ● Muslim Moroccan Migrants in Europe
I find myself tied to the fate of my children; my children are studying here and
will eventually integrate the job market. So it is very difficult for me to return,
and it is hard after all these years to adapt to life in Morocco.
Conclusion
The living conditions of Moroccan migrants in Europe vary according to
marital status, migration category, age, gender, level of education, occupation,
How Moroccans Live in Europe ● 47
T
his part focuses on how Moroccan Muslim migrants are living with
their identity, sense of community, culture, and ties to home. It shows
that cultural diversity is a source of wealth and progress that should
not be perceived as a threat, provided it is well-managed by governments and
communities. The chapters in this part highlight the challenges, benefits, and
role of multiculturalism in the integration of migrants. Respect for cultural
diversity protects migrants and minorities in democratic countries and con-
tributes to their integration and well-being.
However, the European conservative Right and critics of multiculturalism
argue that fostering cultural diversity may cause internal conflicts and ten-
sions in their societies. This means that migrants whose cultures are different
from the Western culture of the dominating majority may be accepted, but
rarely as equals.
The four chapters in this part focus on the concerns and challenges of
Moroccan migrants in Europe, particularly the problem of Islamophobia,
and the need for intercultural dialogue at different times and contexts. Three
related topics are discussed relative to discourse on the veil: women’s expe-
riences and resistance, language issues and the performance of migrants in
education, and the challenge of job insertion.
Chapter 3
T
oday we live in a shrunken world where millions of people are on the
move; one of the biggest challenges is how to live together and respect
diversity—different skin colors, beliefs, and ways of life.
Muslims constitute more than 4 percent of the European population.
Large-scale immigration to Europe, a trend going back to the end of World
War II, may not be new, but the crisis currently facing the continent is excep-
tional (Ennaji 2010a). As second- and third-generation immigrants from the
Middle East and North Africa come of age, Europe is grappling with the
challenge of protecting its values while searching for a solution to the social
ills—alienation, segregation, poverty, oppression, and terrorism—associated
with immigration.1
On May 25, 2010, the Council of Europe published the report Islam,
Islamism, and Islamophobia in Europe, recognizing that Muslims have lived
in Europe for centuries, and acknowledging the contribution of Muslims
and Islamic culture to European civilization.2 However, the report went on
to observe that Muslims in Europe today suffer from marginalization and
discrimination because of prejudices and stereotypes against their religion
and culture (Ihsanoglu 2011).3
The Muslim communities in Europe are ethnically diverse, and dis-
tinguish themselves according to their national or ethnic origin. They are
divided at the sectarian level: about 80 percent are Sunni and 20 percent are
Shi’a. Their frame of reference in terms of tradition, sect, rituals, and iden-
tity, is often their country of origin, not Islam or Muslims (Ramadan 2005;
Phillip 2009:11).
According to the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion in Public
Life’s September 2010 report, there are more than 17 million Muslims in
Europe, 3.2 million of whom live in Germany. The majority are immigrants
52 ● Muslim Moroccan Migrants in Europe
Islamophobia
Islamophobia is an unfounded fear of the Islamic faith and an issue that first
appeared when Islam became a mainstream religion the world over. It started
in the Middle Ages with the Crusades against Islam, and after that, other wars
and conflicts against Islam became common. While it is an ancient issue, it
returned to the spotlight after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Islamophobia may be
What It Means to Be a Muslim in Europe ● 53
Thus, opposition to the rise of Islam, and thereby to the continuing immigra-
tion from Muslim countries, can be heard in both neo-Nazi and leftist-inspired
intellectual circles. A good example of the latter is the leading French intel-
lectual Alain Finkielkraut, who as far back as the 1980s voiced his concerns
about cultural relativism and more recently has criticized the radicalization
of Muslims in Western Europe, as well as the celebration of cultural differ-
ences. The media’s misconception of Islam pictures Muslims as the “attackers”
or the “enemy” of the West. A whole movement against Islam has been growing
through media coverage, movies, politics, and social media.
Moroccan immigrants are viewed as more alien and darker than the blacks
from western Africa because of their low socioeconomic status, and partly
because of the past French colonization of North Africa and the ensuing
unreasonable “colonizer-colonized” relationship (Fanon 1963). These cases
remind us of the situation of immigrants in the United States, where Arab
and Muslim diasporas have become more “black” than the much darker-
skinned population since 9/11 (Ennaji 2010a).
However, Muslim immigrants are considered more of a threat in Europe
than in America because the former does not have a long history of migra-
tion. Indeed many European countries have experienced more emigra-
tion than immigration in their recent history. Many Italians, Spanish, and
Portuguese used to migrate to countries like France or Germany to work;
others migrated to the United States particularly in the first two-thirds of
the twentieth century. However, many Western European countries started
to receive huge numbers of colonial migrants from Africa and Asia starting
in the 1950s. Most of these migrants were actually needed to compensate for
the slow population growth in Europe (see chapter 1). The fact that immigra-
tion is new in Europe, coupled with the received idea that immigration is an
abnormal trend, has made many Europeans think of migrants as temporary
guest workers. Consequently, most European states today refuse to acknow
ledge the new reality that they truly have become immigration countries. As
a result, they view Muslim migrants as a threat, and their different cultural
traditions as conflicting with Western values and lifestyles.
The Danish Cartoons Controversy is a good illustration of the fear of
the Muslim presence in Denmark.6 In September 2007, the right-wing
newspaper, Jyllands-Posten, published 12 insulting pictures of the Prophet
Mohammed, with one showing him with a bomb under his turban.7 From
the beginning, the press added fuel to the fire by focusing almost entirely on
the problems with Muslim immigrants and presenting social issues involving
immigrants from a religious angle.8
There were distressing events in Germany as well, such as the proposal by
the former interior minister of Lower Saxony,9 Uwe Schünemann, to make
“radical Islamists” wear electronic foot tags. “Doing so,” he said, “would allow
the authorities to monitor the approximately 3,000 violence-prone Islamists
in Germany, the hate preachers [i.e., Islamist imams], and the fighters trained
in foreign terrorist camps.” The tagging of Muslims and the numbering of
Jews in Nazi Germany rings a very dangerous bell for the future of Muslims
in Europe.10
On July 1, 2009, during a full court session in East Dresden, Germany,
Alex Wiens, a 29-year-old German man of Russian origin, stabbed to death
Marwa El-Sherbini, a veiled Egyptian woman who was testifying against
56 ● Muslim Moroccan Migrants in Europe
Wiens at the trial. Wiens was sentenced on November 11, 2009, to life in
prison for the racist murder of the 31-year-old woman. El-Sherbini, who was
three months pregnant at the time, was nicknamed “martyr of the veil” by
the Egyptian press. The incident provoked outrage in the Muslim world, and
mass demonstrations in Egypt and Iran in particular, because of the delayed
response by Germany to denounce the crime (Ennaji 2010a).
Since the 2007 presidential elections in France, feelings and discourses
about Islamophobia have intensified.11 In 2008, three Muslim organizations
in France sued the well-known French publication Charlie Hebdo for inciting
hatred against Muslims.12
The League for the Defence of Muslims’ Rights, represented by its presi-
dent Karim Achoui, took to court Charlie Hebdo for blasphemous discourse
on Islam. On July 10, 2013, Charlie Hebdo published on its main cover the
title “le Coran c’est de la merde” (The Qur’an is shit).13
We may also cite the case of the Norwegian mass killer, Anders Behring
Breivik, who on July 22, 2011, murdered 77 innocent young people at a
summer camp—the deadliest attack on Norwegian soil since World War II,
according to The New York Times. He claimed he acted out of necessity and
that his objective was to kill as many of the next generation of Norwegian
social democrats as possible, because he holds the party responsible for allow-
ing large-scale Muslim immigration.14
Effects of Islamophobia
Islamophobia may have a negative impact on Islamophobic people who feel
outraged by Islam, but it has the worst impact on Muslims in the diaspora. As
a result, it leads to an unfair demeanor toward someone’s right to a personal
choice and it has dire effects on the social life of Muslims in the host country.
As mentioned in chapter 2, Muslim minorities in Europe suffer from the
many results of discrimination like stereotyping, unemployment, rejection,
poor housing, racism, and alienation to violence. According to a survey by
the Institut Français d’Opinion Publique (IFOP), published by the French
newspaper Le Figaro on October 25, 2012, 60 percent of French people think
that religion has too much importance in the public space, and 43 percent
consider Islam a threat. To clinch this kind of fear of Islam, 82 percent say
they are against the building of mosques on French territory. Moreover,
68 percent think that Muslim migrants are rejected because they refuse to
integrate in France.15 This reveals that French society is moving from phobia
to paranoia, due to immigrants’ identity crisis, as they have lost the sense
of belonging and identity and feel torn between cultures and continents,
and their children do not really know where they belong and do not usually
What It Means to Be a Muslim in Europe ● 57
appreciate the sacrifice their parents made for them. “France, which experi-
ences identity crisis, invented a ‘metaphysical Muslim’, an attitude that aims
to refer to what we do not want to be,” stated Raphaël Liogier, director of
the Religious Observatory in Paris, in an interview with the French magazine
Le Point of November 1, 2012. It is true that Muslims in Europe must also
adapt to the new environment and respect the laïcité, which separates religion
from the state (Ramadan 2013). Laïcité must be obeyed, and the law must be
general and applicable to all, whatever their religious beliefs.16
Although everybody agrees that terrorism under the cover of religion
should be severely opposed and condemned, the extreme right wing parties
use anti-Islam sentiments, especially during election campaigns, thus confus-
ing Muslim fundamentalism with moderate Islam (Bouzar 2014). Marine Le
Pen, who took over the leadership of the National Front from her father, has
continued the same anti-Muslim migrants discourse for electoral purposes.17
In his book Covering Islam (1981), Edward Said underscores numerous
stereotypes and prejudices in the portrayal of Muslims by the Western media,
how the latter have used and perpetuated a negative image of Islam, and how
this has prevented mutual understanding while providing an invented com-
mon enemy for the diverse Western peoples (Vidal 2005).
Muslims across Europe are associated with extremism and violence. They
are accused of being the source of tensions in the public space, and acts of
discrimination against them remain under-reported (Bowen 2005). Young
Muslim Moroccans suffer from permanent stigmatization, humiliation,
and police harassment in the cities. They live in areas with underprivileged
housing conditions and are obliged to take low-level jobs with small wages18
(Phillip 2009: 9; Ennaji 2010a).
the moderate Muslim is not the representation of the Prophet, but the fact
that there is a double standard (Phillip 2009:10; Rayski 2014).
Subsequent to the French banlieues (low-income suburbs) riots of
November 2005, many European analysts warned that what had occurred
in France would trickle over to other European countries as they, too, have
large Muslim populations (Boubekeur and Amghar 2006). The mistaken
connection between the riots and Islam was obvious. The popular Jewish
philosopher, Alain Finkielkraut, declared in an interview in the Israeli daily
Haaretz, on November 19, 2006 that the “riots were not linked with the
injustices and racist discriminations faced by the rioters at the hands of the
much-acclaimed French Republican Model of Integration, but were caused
by the fact the rioters are Blacks, Arabs, who identify themselves with Islam.
Hence the problem is linked with religion and ethnicity.” He went on to add
that the riots were “a clear gigantic anti-republican pogrom.”20
This connection with Islam is used as a tool to hide realities in French
society. The lack of integration of Muslim immigrants in France is ascribed
to a deep attachment to Islam, which according to officials is fundamentally
incompatible with democracy (Tibi 2009).
The social reality of Muslim immigrants is indeed a paramount factor in
the rise of extremism and xenophobia. For instance, unemployment among
the youth in the banlieues has reached approximately 40 percent, compared
to the national average of 10 percent, and the unemployment rate among
university-educated second- and third-generation Muslim immigrants is
around three times the national figure.21
Thus, it was important that the French government address the root causes
of the riots: institutional racism, poverty, unemployment, and exclusion.
Given the hard circumstances in which they lived, Muslims had reasons to be
anxious and concerned (Ramadan 2005).
Despite his negative discourse about immigrants and illegal migration,
Nicolas Sarkozy was the first French minister of the interior to set up the
French equivalent of the UK’s Muslim Council of Britain, the Conseil
Francais Du Culte Musulman (CFCM). Then, against a very hostile Centre-
Right and Far-Right backlash, he “extended a hand to the French Muslims to
officially join the Republican table.” It was about time he proclaimed to take
Islam out of “caves and garages” and be part of an “official French Islam.”22
But many academics and political analysts are raising alarms about the
subtle but quite calculated ways French politics and policies are shifting dan-
gerously from Right to extreme Right.
On December 27, 2005, Christiane Chombeau, in an article in the
French newspaper Le Monde, wrote about the LePenisation of the French
government’s responses and policies following the riots. That is, how the
What It Means to Be a Muslim in Europe ● 59
fighters who fought for our country in all wars, and an insult to all freedom
fighters . . .; this insult to the memory of the dead is a worrying sign of a
deeply rooted ailment which is installed in total impunity: ‘Islamophobia,’”
said Jean-Marie Bockel, former secretary of state for defense and veterans
affairs, on the Luxembourg RTL TV channel.25
In fall 2009, France launched a country-wide debate on national identity, the
aim of which was to discuss cultural values on a large-scale level and strengthen
French nationalism. However, immigrants and French citizens of Muslim or
North African origin felt targeted, as they were identified in this debate as aliens
and outsiders. As a result, immigrants rejected this debate, which many quali-
fied as racist and anti-democratic (Daoud 2011; Ramadan 2013).
Ansari (24-year-old Moroccan) confided to me his rejection of the whole
idea of the debate: “As a French young man of Saint-Denis Department,
I would like to say that I don’t feel at home in this France.”
In a letter addressed to French President Nicolas Sarkozy on December
24, 2009, and in reaction to racist accusations by the government toward
migrants and the Muslim community in general,26 Mustapha Kharmoudi,
writer and former member of the Council of the Integration of Immigrant
Populations, declared simply “Your France, I don’t want anymore . . . I am
not from this cold, racist, and reserved France which depicts a French young
man from Muslim faith as an alien, a dangerous asocial person.”
In the same vein, in 2010 a great number of French and non-French intellec-
tuals and civil-society activists signed a petition addressed to President Sarkozy
asking him to abolish the Ministry of Immigration, Integration, National
Identity, and Co-development, which he had created immediately after being
elected president. This ministry, according to them, stigmatizes immigrants and
widens the gap between them and French nationals, as the ministry’s main
objective was to deport 27,000 illegal immigrants every year and extradite
immigrants seeking exile in France.27 The petitioners demanded the abolish-
ment of the ministry altogether, as it was a danger for democracy in France.
(Datta 2009: 120). The 2001 census found there were around 1.5 million
Muslims in the UK, making them the largest religious minority, at 3 percent
of the total population. That figure may now be as high as 2 million (Phillip
2009: Introduction).
British Muslims are ethnically and culturally diverse. According to the
2001 census, 74 percent are of Asian origin, 11.6 percent are white, 6.9 per-
cent are black, and 7.5 percent are other ethnicities. Almost half of British
Muslims were born in the United Kingdom. Others have immigrated from
South Asia (31 percent), the Middle East (6 percent), South and East Africa
(6 percent), Eastern Europe (4 percent), and North Africa (2.5 percent).28
Muslims are the youngest of Britain’s faith communities. Over half of
British Muslims are under age 25, and Muslim households have the largest
numbers of dependent children. They generally live in social rented housing
and more than half of them are unemployed, compared to a third of the gen-
eral population (Phillip 2009: 12; Ahmad and Sardar 2012: 5).
The UK has the highest number of Muslim parliamentarians in all Europe,
and over 200 Muslim councilors. The first British Muslim parliamentarian
was Lord Stanley of Alderley who converted to Islam in the late nineteenth
century. He was followed by Lord Headley, who converted to Islam in 1913.
Today, many Muslim institutions and organizations are engaged in promot-
ing and protecting the needs and interests of British Muslims over a range of
areas including youth, work, education, and social services.
The first Muslim school in the UK was created in the late nineteenth cen-
tury in Liverpool. There are now over 110 Muslim schools, only five of which
are state-owned. The headscarf has been integrated into the school uniform
for Muslim girls (Mirza 2012: 121). Oxford and Cambridge Universities
established Chairs of Arabic in the 1630s, and the first English translation
of the Qur’an was published in 1649. The first mosque was built in Woking
in 1889, and there are now more than 1,200 mosques in the UK. Among
the many Muslim charities established in the UK, the most well known are
Islamic Relief and Muslim Aid.
Populations in the Pakistani communities of Bradford, Oldham,
Manchester, and Leicester have trebled during the last decade. Muslims born
and educated in Britain were made to feel like outsiders.29 The feeling among
Muslims that they are unwelcome in the UK is undermining endeavors to
integrate into wider society. Most of them state that they have experienced
race discrimination and religious prejudice. Islam is pictured by the British
elite and media as an extremist and separatist religion, which negatively
impacts Muslim community life and social cohesion. The number of racist
incidents in London Borough of Redbridge’s schools reached their highest
levels between 2006 and 2012 (Ahmad and Sardar 2012: Introduction).
62 ● Muslim Moroccan Migrants in Europe
respect for cultural diversity. Cultural dialogue and respect of diversity are
badly needed to enhance tolerance, stability, and prosperity both locally and
globally.
Racism can be used to exploit anti-immigrant feelings as an excuse for
current woes of local populations, unfairly blaming the immigrants alone for
their economic problems. Concerns about illegal migration, employment,
or security can spill over to ill feelings toward the majority of Muslim immi-
grants who are law-abiding and contributing to the economy.
As mentioned earlier, the media’s negative portrayal of Islam and Muslim
immigrants has been quite mainstream in Europe since 2001. As Randall
(2003) observes, three major British papers, the Daily Telegraph, The Guardian,
and The Independent—from the political right, left, and center, respectively—
reveal a common set of problems and similar levels of bias against immi-
grants in general, and Muslims in particular. Irrespective of party, leading
European politicians repeatedly highlight fears of “invasion, alleged threats
and actual prejudices—conveying a very negative image of immigrants
despite their statistically small impact on society . . . Concerns over crime,
disease, terrorism, detention, and surveillance are consistently pushed well to
the fore.”30 The rising tide of Islamophobic rhetoric can equally be seen in
Europe’s mainstream political parties, such as the Danish People’s Party, the
Dutch Freedom Party, the French National Front, the Swiss Peoples’ Party,
the English Defence League, the Italian Northern League, and the Austrian
Freedom Party.31
This kind of mindset can be ascribed to a number of cultural, social, and
economic factors, including the existence of a covert racist ideology at the
societal level, which often jeopardizes immigrants’ rights.
Honest consideration of immigration issues should involve a far more
diverse range of topics, reflecting the complexity of the issues at hand, such
as multiculturalism, demography, human rights, refugee health, economic
policy, and moral responsibility. Governments, civil society, migrants, and
their NGOs must work together toward mutual understanding and respect
of diversity, human rights, and rights of migrants.
Conclusion
Despite being discriminated against because of their faith and cultural back-
ground, Moroccan Muslim migrants in Europe are keen on realizing their
migration project, improving their incomes, providing quality education for
their children, and protecting their dignity and human rights. They are ready
to make compromises in order to integrate into the host society; yet the lat-
ter is not fully ready to make any efforts to accommodate the immigrants’
culture and religion.
Recent scholarly debate in North America has stressed the importance
of normative multiculturalism. Well-known supporters of cultural diversity
like Kymlicka (1995) and Taylor (1992) believe that Western societies have
66 ● Muslim Moroccan Migrants in Europe
T
his chapter retraces the steps of the veil debate in France through a
historical and political analysis, revealing a deep malaise in French
society. This societal problem has sprung from France’s unwillingness
to accept differences, especially those of a Muslim community that publicly
manifests its cultural identity. In January 2004, French authorities enacted a
law forbidding women to wear headscarves, burqas, or any signs that revealed
students’ religious orientation in schools. A burqa is a garment that com-
pletely covers a woman’s body and face, except for her eyes. A headscarf is a
scarf covering most of a woman’s hair, head, and neck, often worn tied under
the chin. To many Muslim women and men, it was Islam and Muslims that
were being targeted, as the law specifically aimed to prohibit wearing the
hijab (veil) in public schools. Bowen (2007) discusses at length the history
and arguments for and against this new law. He did not focus on the lack of
integration of immigrants in France, but tried to trace and explain the his-
torical, cultural, and political reasons for this new law, which most Europeans
would consider as strange and against human rights.
The French state is based on secularism, or the separation of religion and
the state (laïcité), and the distinction between the public and private spaces.
By passing the law prohibiting headscarves in schools, the French legisla-
tion and the political elites consolidated a French tradition from the time
of eighteenth-century philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau, which emphasized
common values over individual concerns and behaviors.
The Paris banlieues street riots of 2005 were a harsh reminder of how little
progress had been made toward the integration of immigrants. Bowen (2007)
states the violence was an indication of government policy failure to improve
the socioeconomic life in the suburbs. The issue of identity is very significant
throughout French society, and public debate about Islam and the headscarf
consequently became significant. Additionally, concerns about French-born
Muslim girls defiantly wearing a symbol of their culture provoked French
people’s anger because of the considerable discrimination against Muslims
in France. Bowen (2007: 29) emphasizes the relative novelty of girls wearing
headscarves not because of parental pressure but as “part of a conscious effort
to create a new identity . . . defining themselves in Islamic terms.”
The identity movement began in the early 1980s but shifted in the 1990s
from a North African immigrant identity to a Muslim one. The French public
opinion was disturbed by other Islamic public ritual practices, especially sac-
rifice and prostrations in mysterious edifices, or Friday prayers in the streets.
Some consider these rites a direct menace to public order because of the
politicians’ endeavor to keep religion in private spheres, prevent Islam from
dominating young people’s minds, and build a common French identity with
shared values to which all French people adhere.
Muslim population and fostered fracture rather than integration (Le Monde
of December 7, 2003).
Two young French Muslim women, age 21 and 22 and residing in Orne,
were excluded from their school because they had worn the headscarf during
a sport session. They challenged this exclusion but on December 2, 2008,
the Court rejected their claim that they had been discriminated against. They
complained of being excluded permanently from their school because they
had refused to remove their headscarves during physical education classes and
sports. As a result of their exclusion, they had to continue their education by
correspondence. Their appeals to the French administrative courts had all
been rejected. Before the European Court of Human Rights, they invoked
Article 9 (right to freedom of thought, conscience, and religion) and Article
2 of Protocol 1 (right to education) of the European Convention on Human
Rights. However, some women’s organizations opposed the law prohibiting
scarves in public schools. The women’s organization Ni Putes Ni Soumises
(Neither Whores nor Submissives) refused to march with groups supporting
the law. Chollet (2005) advocated women’s freedom to choose their appear-
ance, and hence supported the idea that Muslim women were free to choose
their clothing and their personal lives.
In an interview with the French newspaper Libération on April 23, 2003,
French philosopher Elisabeth Badinter stressed the importance of all women
joining forces to eradicate gender-based segregation. For her, the headscarf
was linked to “a system that excluded the freedoms and rights acquired by
women (sexual freedom, freedom of movement, freedom to marry who they
want, etc.).” These rights must be “guaranteed for all women, not just for
French women.” She added that a “different treatment” for Muslim women
was unacceptable, and all feminists must have the same discourse against the
headscarf and against women’s subjugation. She viewed gender discrimination
as harmful to both the individual and society and emphasized that a “firm
political stance on laïcité and gender equality is highly needed, as this is the
thermometer of the advancement of democracy” (see also Badinter 2006).3
Many scholars rose to fight the campaign against Islam and Muslims, criti-
cizing the simplistic general views about Islam. For instance, Ramadan (2005)
argued against the law banning headscarves, which was likely to discriminate
against Muslims and impede their integration. Modood (2003) made the
claim against the attack on Islam, which up until 1989 was regarded as a reli-
gion of peace. They recommended respecting diversity and strengthening the
ties with the Muslim community in France in order to help them integrate.
Other Muslim scholars, like Chebel (2013), criticized the idea that to be a
good Muslim, a woman must wear the headscarf.
Yet Muslim Moroccan immigrants are not one homogeneous group.
Among them, we find Islamists, secularists, and simple moderate Muslims.
The Islamists are but a small minority who are active in mosques and other
74 ● Muslim Moroccan Migrants in Europe
public spaces, trying to advance their ideology, defend the Muslims’ right
to difference and to freely practice their religion in Europe. Most Muslim
Moroccan immigrants are pacifists who relinquish violence. They claim their
Muslim identity and are not necessarily opposed to France, although they
defy traditional notions of being French.
The secularists, who believe in the separation of the state and religion, are
mostly highly educated professionals and intellectuals who are more passion-
ate about modernity, democracy, and human rights than about religion. The
vast majority are ordinary moderate Muslims who practice their religion in
peace (pray, fast, observe rituals), and who seek the spirituality of Islam to
cope with the Western lifestyle and the effects of globalization (Ennaji 2010a).
The main argument supporting the ban is that the face veil prevents the
clear identification of a person, which constitutes both a security threat and
a social barrier within a society that relies heavily on facial recognition and
expression in communication. The major criticism leveled against the ban is
that it encroaches upon individual freedoms.
Conclusion
The debate on the veil reveals the deep unwillingness of European societ-
ies to acknowledge diversity, especially nowadays with the Muslim commu-
nity eager to retain its customs, beliefs, and identity. The law against the
headscarf, the burqa, and the niqab, together with the debate on national
identity in France, has exacerbated the tense race-relations in this country.
Fear of Europe’s growing Muslim population has bred tension across the con-
tinent. This kind of concern and fear pushed Switzerland to ban minarets
in November 2009 and set limits on immigration in 2014.11 These mea-
sures intensify Islamophobia and deepen the anxiety and marginalization of
Moroccan Muslim communities, leaving their real problems such as educa-
tion, unemployment, poverty, and poor housing unattended to.
Chapter 5
T
he emergence of a literature on migrant women owes much to two
factors. One is a wider feminist debate about women’s social role;
the other is recognition of the vital socioeconomic role of migrant
women. The rising feminization of migration constitutes a global fact and
does not concern Moroccan women only. A growing number of women
migrate alone, partly because of wealthy countries’ need for workers to fill
traditionally feminine jobs—elder and child care, housework, etc.—but also
because women aspire to live in societies offering them more opportunities,
equality, emancipation, and a better future for their children. Unfortunately,
the reality in the host countries coupled with women’s vulnerability as immi-
grants may at times preclude them from realizing their ambitions.
As mentioned in chapters 1 and 2, the number of Moroccan women in
Europe has been increasing for the last two decades. Family reunification
is considered the main reason for their mobility, and what has come to be
termed the “feminization” of the labor market has accelerated the rate of
female migrants for economic reasons. Moroccan women’s migration has not
received enough attention, and slight research has been undertaken to exam-
ine its peculiarities and the mutations it has undergone in the last decades.
Female migration has for a long time been considered a mere consequence of
male migration, mainly because of the family reunification that began in the
1970s, and because of the subsequent family formation process, but today it
constitutes an independent phenomenon with its own specificities and issues
(Ennaji and Sadiqi 2008: ch. 4; Killian 2006: ch. 1).
As a result of integration difficulties faced by Moroccan women, nowa-
days their problems are multiple—changes in gender relations, evolution
of the family structure, conflicts of authority, language problems, and mat-
ters related to children’s education and future marriage.1 These problems are
78 ● Muslim Moroccan Migrants in Europe
It is awfully difficult to leave your friends, your school, your culture and every-
thing else that you have always known, at the age of twelve, to come to a com-
pletely different foreign land, different language, different weather, absolutely
everything was very different. Having said that, it was not a shock, it was not
a surprise either. I think when you have a very strong family, it sort of holds it
together. (interview 2010)2
This led to the growing presence of Moroccan women on the job market
of the receiving countries, especially in France where the number of active
Moroccan women increased from 26.7 percent in 1975 to 39 percent in
2002 (Khachani 2004: 28). Most of these women were recruited with a work
permit, and special quotas were used for the employment of domestic work-
ers in hospitals, hotels, schools, administrations, and private homes, espe-
cially in France, Spain, Belgium, and Italy. In Belgium, the Netherlands, and
Germany a significant number of these women worked in different sectors,
especially services, because thousands of women had migrated within the
framework of family reunification, which was happening on a large scale in
those countries. However, in Spain and Italy only a low number of women
were in the job market given the small scale of family reunification.
80 ● Muslim Moroccan Migrants in Europe
Two categories of women migrants can be distinguished. First, there are the
women of rural origin who continue their traditional lifestyles, continuing to
work in the home taking care of the household and children while their hus-
bands were the providers. The second category is that of women who worked
outside of the home in an effort to conform to the lifestyle in the host country.
Since the 2000s, more and more women have migrated as economically
autonomous individuals, independently from male migrants. The new genera-
tion of female migrants is young and works in various economic fields. They
are classified in the third phase of migration, characterized by the feminization
of migration.
Women’s immigration to Spain, Italy, and Germany has been develop-
ing since the early 1990s. In Italy, the number of Moroccan women work-
ers reached 37.4 percent of the overall population of Moroccan migrants
in 1993, and the number of work permits delivered in favor of Moroccan
women was multiplied by six between 1993 and 2002 (Salih 2002).
Comparatively, Moroccan women outnumber their North African
counterparts—according to the Italian National Institute of Statistics (ISTAT),
in 2012 Moroccan women represented 31.9 percent compared to 24.1 per-
cent for Tunisian women and 20.5 percent for Algerian women.3 In 1990s
Spain, Moroccan women were the main migrant female community from out-
side the EU. Moroccan women represented one third of the overall migrant
group, while Algerian women represented only 20 percent of the North African
community.
Following the work of King (1989), Collins (2000), and Killian (2006:
10), which demonstrates the intersectionality of ethnicity and gender, I will
argue in the remainder of this chapter that Moroccan women in Europe defy
multifaceted discrimination as North Africans, Muslims, migrants, and as
women. Their case is similar to African and African-American women in the
United States who suffer similar forms of oppression and are caught between
their identity as women and their identity as a minority.
As we saw in chapter 4, the headscarf issue is a revealing example of how the
media and several pressure groups instrumentalize women in political fights and
debates about identity and integration, and how Muslim women seek to dissi-
pate fear of their religion, fighting back in the settlement country (Killian 2006).
the agriculture and trade sectors, which brought about more unemployment
among women, educated and non-educated alike. The Structural Adjustment
Program, which was created by the World Bank, imposed a reduction of
employment in general and was disadvantageous to women, particularly
young women, who were hard hit by the restrictions. Likewise, the liber-
alization of the economy and privatization of many government companies
pushed many women to seek work in the sectors of agriculture, textiles, and
trades. The Moroccan economy has also been negatively affected by the Gulf
War, the rise of oil prices, and the global financial crisis. For example, in
2009, 33.2 percent of women between the ages of 15 and 24 were unem-
ployed (Moroccan Department of Statistics 2009). Today, women suffer from
unemployment more than men in Morocco, regardless of education, because
of gender discrimination (Ennaji and Sadiqi 2008: ch. 4; Khannous, 2010).
Thus, economic reasons are behind the recent favorable attitude toward
women’s migration. Over 53 percent of the population think that it is good
for women to migrate abroad, which indicates a change in attitude and per-
ception regarding women’s migration (Ennaji and Sadiqi 2008: ch 3).
All these factors have contributed to the birth of a culture of migration,
which has become deeply rooted, even in school children. According to a
1995 survey of school children, administered by the Moroccan Association
for Studies and Research on Migration, young kids were often in favor of
migration, and 13 percent of young girls stated that they would migrate
in the future if necessary. Thus it seems that there is some sort of psycho-
logical pressure on young people to migrate outside Morocco legally or
illegally (Ennaji 2012c). Although less than 10 percent of women claimed
they had migrated to pursue their training and education, for the vast
majority migration was the only solution to escape poverty and financially
support the extended family left behind in Morocco (Ennaji and Sadiqi
2008: ch. 3).
accept a small salary and prefer to live with their employers to avoid having
to pay rent elsewhere.
Migrant women usually work under appalling conditions—their poor
knowledge of the host country and its language, weak qualifications, igno-
rance of their rights and obligations, and political inexperience make them
relatively vulnerable. They usually have part-time or seasonal jobs; however,
domestic and temporary work does not foster integration, as immigrants
feel cut off from public relations and often work overtime—between 8 and
14 hours a day (Khachani 2009b).
As far as salaries are concerned, Moroccan women are discriminated
against for gender and ethnic reasons. In many cases, the average salary of a
Moroccan woman is much less than that of a French or Belgian worker. This
difference can be accounted for by the fact that a great number of Moroccan
women apply for a limited number of low-paying jobs. Moreover, even those
who undertook training found that their employment opportunities were
limited because of discriminatory hiring practices (El Ghali 2003). With the
financial crisis, migrant Moroccan women may remain unemployed for a
period of time before finding a job.
There are three major reasons behind the rising demand for Moroccan
women in the textile industry or the domestic sphere. The first is the with-
drawal of state services for the young and the elderly. The second reason is the
mounting rise of women in waged work without a parallel transformation in
attitude toward the traditional division of labor in the domestic sphere. The
third reason is the development of the tourism industry and the dislocation
of the male workforce whose needs must be met (Truong 1996).
The exploitation of Moroccan migrant women in the host country due to
racism and a lack of integration and citizenship rights, is worse in domestic
work, especially when the migrant is illegal. Research conducted in 1996
by Anderson (2000) in five European countries, shows that hiring undocu-
mented migrant women to fill domestic jobs is also prevalent because they are
cheap labor.6 The number of working women in Europe and North America
has increased, so too has the demand for maids to fill the gap in the domestic
chores.7
Among other factors that increase the employment of migrant women
in the domestic sphere are the aging population in Europe and the fall of
the extended family, which is a family form that consists of several genera-
tions of a family. It has been supplanted by the nuclear family, which consists
of parents and their children (orsini-Jones and Gattullo 2000). Countries
like Italy, France, and Spain admit their need for domestic labor and opt for
either legalizing a significant number of undocumented migrants, or imple-
menting a certain quota of work permits each year in this sector.8 In Spain,
84 ● Muslim Moroccan Migrants in Europe
the annual quota of 9,000 work permits for domestic workers has histori-
cally been used to legalize the status of Moroccan women working illegally.
Domestic employment is a sector largely avoided by European nationals, and
is widely perceived as “migrant women’s work.”9 In 1986, the vast majority of
regularized immigrant women in Italy were from Morocco (Salih 2002). The
granting of a regular migrant status would reduce the social costs of female
migration by allowing women to return home more often to visit family and
still have access to decent work.10
In addition to the large number of Moroccan women in Europe doing
low-level jobs, a significant number of highly skilled Moroccan women
migrants have high positions in medicine, engineering, finance, etc. This is
due to the increasing presence of women in higher education, the develop-
ment of trade, international division of labor, as well as to the rise of multi-
nationals since the 1990s.
However, many highly or sufficiently skilled women end up in unskilled
jobs like receptionist, cashier, or waiter, after their migration. This raises the
issue of “de-skilling” or “brain waste”, as migrants find themselves forced
to work in low-skill sectors that have nothing to do with their qualifica-
tions (Sadiqi 2007). As El Ghali (2003) points out, most Moroccan migrant
women in Spain are in employment sectors associated with hard work and
illegality, as well as exploitation, poor housing, health issues, low pay, and job
insecurity (Phillips and Taylor, 1980).
Nevertheless, most Moroccan women in Europe are insistent to render
their migratory experience a process of empowerment. Many women have
opted for self-employment as a means of partaking in a lucrative ethnic
business, such as in the fashion and food industries (Raghuram and Hardill
1998). Some of them have created small businesses in partnership with their
husbands, who usually seek the collaboration of their spouses, as this state-
ment made by Driss, a 44-year-old Moroccan travel agent in Montpellier,
indicates:
My wife and I own this travel agency which we started ten year ago. We col-
laborate and we consult each other on many things. We are doing fine. My wife
is in charge of everyday administration of the agency and paper work. I focus
on the finances, income and expenditure.
they have a low social status, whereas in Morocco they enjoy a prestigious posi-
tion. This is the case of Halima, who works as a maid in Milan, but once back
in Morocco her social position changes to master, as she is able to, in turn,
have a maid working for her. Migration indirectly enhances not only the social
status of migrants in Morocco, but also that of their families. This is evident
during wedding celebrations, for example, where the family’s housework is per-
formed by hired women outside the family circle (Sadiqi and Ennaji, 2004).
However, Moroccan women feel anxious about their transnational identity,
as they are not always able to rid themselves of the feelings of guilt, rupture,
and stress, which are direct results of their wish to belong to both countries.
To validate this argument, I quote Lamia, whom I interviewed in Florence:
For my family and me, it’s better to return to Morocco. We have enough savings
now, and we prefer to educate our children in a Muslim environment. Being
a migrant, you belong neither here nor in your home country. In Morocco,
we are called “fakans” (holiday-makers) or “ttalian” (Italians) and in Italy, we
are called Moroccans or immigrants. There is an identity issue and the uncer-
tainty of the future. We are not sure our kids have a better opportunity here,
especially with the economic crisis today, which does not seem to want to end.
and Meknès. They had work permits and worked largely in the fields, picking
fruits and vegetables.11
The second wave took place in the early 1970s as a result of employment
contracts obtained by guest workers from northern Morocco, chiefly Larache,
Asilah, Tetuan, and Tangiers. This group comprised essentially women who
held jobs in hotels and hospitals, and most of them were single, unlike in
other European countries where women migrated with their husbands or
joined them in family reunification. Many of these women married non-
Moroccans, and were the only breadwinners in their families, because their
husbands were often jobless. Because of this, Moroccan women had a more
advantageous position when it came to decision-making and autonomy and
as a result became actors of change and integration.
Moroccan women in the UK have played a great role in the advance-
ment and welfare of their families. Their profile has changed significantly
with the family reunification that began in the 1970s, and the great majority
of the first generation of Moroccan women migrants now has British citizen-
ship (Cherti 2008: 80). The current female migration from Morocco, which
started in the 1990s, consists mainly of skilled Moroccan professionals, most
of whom work in business and finance sectors in London. This group is rather
small, not exceeding a thousand women (Cherti 2008: 81).
There are many women’s civil society organizations in Britain. One of
the most well known is the Al-Hasaniya Moroccan Women’s Centre, which
celebrated its twenty-fifth anniversary in 2010. It is a grassroots organization
providing guidance and counseling to Moroccan women and their families
concerning benefits, housing, homelessness, domestic violence, education,
and health. The association also organizes social and cultural events and
offers English and Arabic classes, as well as various activities for the youth
and elderly (Communities 2009: 49). It aims to promote positive citizenship
and greater understanding among communities. This association has become
“by default a mouthpiece for women, not only in London area but also on
an international level.” For instance, it was very active in the campaign for
women’s rights in Morocco (Talsi interview).12
In 2011, Souad Talsi, founder of the Al-Hasaniya Moroccan Women’s
Centre in London, was named on the Queen’s Birthday Honours List to
receive an MBE13 for her services to the Moroccan community in Britain.
She remembers how her friends, when they reached the age of sixteen, were
married off to cousins from Morocco, who then came and joined their spouses
in Britain.14
Given the fact that British society is more open and cosmopolitan than
France, and has no colonial past with Morocco, Moroccan women easily
adapt and integrate in the UK. They have professionally evolved over the
88 ● Muslim Moroccan Migrants in Europe
are considered less of a threat in the street, and are responsible, peaceful, and
hardworking. “French men in particular are more courteous with us than
with men, which is unjust to men,” says Ghita, a 45-year old pharmacist in
France. This perception is confirmed by Killian (2006: 80) who explained:
“This was particularly true of women who played the game, “doing” gender
according to French norms, and thus got more aid from French people.”
Furthermore, as mentioned above, the integration of women in the job
market had positive effects on their families and households. For many
migrant women, work enabled them to acquire a new status as bread winners
or economic agents, helping them integrate into society and partake in active
life. They also achieved independence and an improved lifestyle. Salaried
women, for instance, no longer depended on their husbands’ income and
contributed to the family budget, savings, and the management of their
household. Siham (39, cleaner in France) stated:
Unlike Morocco, here it’s impossible to stay without a job, unless the husband
has a very good income . . . You need to pay the bills, to pay for the kids school,
to pay the rent, in addition to the high cost of living.
Since I have started working, I pay for my kids’ school, pay for their food and
clothing, and buy what I need. I go out to work, to do some shopping and to
get things done in town. When I joined my husband twenty years ago, I was a
housewife. But now with my job, I feel liberated and independent.
Thus, work is the means by which women can alleviate the difficult socio-
economic context in which they live. As mentioned above, a small category
of women have created their own businesses after a long, unsuccessful job
search. Thus for them, designing their business entails creating their employ-
ment and being responsible, knowing that running one’s enterprise is not an
easy task, as it requires skill and hard work. Here as well, the support of the
family is crucial for the success of the business.
How Moroccan Women in Europe Cope and Resist ● 91
This space creates an opportunity for change propelled principally by the cour-
age, agency, and mobility of female characters that weaken patriarchal domina-
tion in Muslim society and counter powerful Western ideologies.
Conclusion
This chapter has examined the issue of Moroccan women’s conditions in
Europe, and the factors that characterize their employment in the European
context. The overwhelming majority of these women are largely confined to
the least prestigious jobs in services, domestic work, and the clothing indus-
try. Because their skills are not always acknowledged, they are compelled to
work in areas that have nothing to do with the training they received. Given
the increasing rate of racial and gender-based discrimination, a significant
number of women have resorted to self-employment in pursuit of economic
and social welfare. Governments and civil society organizations in both the
sending and receiving countries are required to reaffirm their commitment
to the cause of migrant women and their empowerment. The priority is
to ensure that their migration experience is constructive and conducive to
development.
This chapter has also discussed the negative stereotypes of Muslim women
as oppressed and passive human beings with no power whatsoever to make
any change in their lives. It underlines female agency in international migra-
tion, and shows, on the contrary, that Moroccan women make such brave
decisions as migration, despite its challenges, in order to better their lives and
to be free and independent.
This study corroborates recent research that Moroccan women regard
migration as an opportunity to build a new life, whereas men consider it
an occasion to display their masculinity (Killian 2006; Martin 2010). Male
migrants often associate migration with the loss of power and control over
their family, especially the women, and retaliate by constructing hurdles
trying to prevent Western influences that disturb or threaten their control.
When they see that women have achieved strength and financial indepen-
dence, they feel insecure to the extent that some of them turn to domestic
violence, while others turn to religion, in this case Islam or Muslim funda-
mentalism. Consequently, the popular stereotypes of men being strong and
dominant contrasted with the weak and obedient women are eliminated,
provoking a sort of anxiety that shatters the patriarchal system.
Thus, women’s emancipation through migration undermines the patriar-
chal authority that traditionally subjugates women and relegates them to the
94 ● Muslim Moroccan Migrants in Europe
home and the rearing of children. This is one of the main reasons why the vast
majority of women believe that migration is irreversible and a survival strat-
egy that helps them focus on building a better future in their new country.
Thus, they represent a new type of feminism that contributes to gender equity,
a culture of sharing and dialogue, social development, and the s ubversion of
old gender roles.
In contrast with the theory of Orientalism, which portrays women as
weak, subdued, and powerless, Moroccan women show a strong resistance
to the current stereotypes and to the status quo (Said 1977). They have the
ability to adapt to Western values, negotiate their own culture through the
complex aspects of modernism and liberalism, and adopt a critical female
non-Western viewpoint which, unlike Orientalist theory, considers woman a
strong, independent, and dynamic individual who does have agency in soci-
ety, a “Reverse Orientalism,” as Martin (2010: 1) formulates it.
Chapter 6
T
his chapter is based on a number of recent education surveys and
sociolinguistic studies within the lines of Merryfield (2010), Jenks
(2010), and Shohamy (2004), which consider linguistic and educa-
tional development a complex cultural activity that is inseparable from the
individual’s historical, socioeconomic, and cultural context. Language learn-
ing and socialization through language are part of the integration process in
the host society, where the identity of children and adults is formed through
the social norms and meanings shared by the linguistic community at large.
Similar studies in the United States have underscored the important role of
the sociocultural factor in any analysis of language and education achieve-
ments among immigrants. See, for example, the work of Fishman (1989),
Gallimore and Goldenberg (1993), Schiffman (1996), Schechter and Bayley
(1997), Cooper, Shohamy and Walters (2001), and Grant and Sleeter (2011).
According to these studies, parents adopt different strategies depending
on their attitudes toward the dominant language and culture. While some
of them endeavor to assimilate to the target culture, thereby rejecting their
language of origin, others resist the assimilation process and affirm their heri-
tage by maintaining the family language and cultural values. This chapter
also borrows from Bourdieu’s (1977) critical theory of linguistic exchanges,
which suggests that in a social context of inequality some groups must invest
more energy and work more strategically than others to acquire the neces-
sary resources for survival in the competitive linguistic and job markets. For
Bourdieu (ibid.), these resources include linguistic competence that func-
tions, like any other capital, in close relation with the employment market.
The analysis in this chapter corroborates the findings of Dagenais and
Day (1998) and Dagenais and Jacquet (2000), which show that immigrant
families value bilingual education while resisting assimilation through the
maintenance of (and loyalty to) the mother tongue. Along the lines of Hurd
96 ● Muslim Moroccan Migrants in Europe
(1993) and Lamarre (1997), the chapter shows that bilingual education is
advantageous, especially when the first language is maintained and valued.
Hurd (ibid.) emphasizes that students from linguistic minorities can succeed
in immersion programs on the condition that they pursue studying their lan-
guage of origin at home and at school. The chapter will explore the kind of
bilingual education that Moroccan immigrants are exposed to, and how chil-
dren cope with the different European languages and immersion programs
while continuing to speak and preserve their mother tongue. The chapter
will focus on the tension between integration and resistance to assimilation
that seems to characterize the actions of Moroccan children and parents who
encourage multilingualism and bilingual education as part of a national and
transnational education strategy.
The present chapter is based on semi-structured interviews with 14 fami-
lies with school-age children, 12 teachers, and 20 Moroccan students in pri-
mary, secondary and higher education. The participants in the survey were
originally from northern and central Morocco, and most spoke both their
mother tongue and the official language of the host country. The parents
received at least elementary education, and the majority finished their sec-
ondary education. Some of them were unemployed but most had jobs in ser-
vices, agriculture, and industry. This survey sought to find out their children’s
school attainment and the degree of their integration or assimilation in the
host country.
From the semi-structured interviews and conversations I had with some
respondents, the native language was affirmed to be the language of interac-
tion with parents, extended family members, and their linguistic commu-
nity. The main remark was that parents gave a lot of weight or “symbolic
importance” to bilingualism and multilingualism, as Bourdieu (1977) states.
Parents chose bilingual education for their offspring as a means to facilitate
their integration in the European society and were basically keen to ensure a
“brighter tomorrow” for their children, as Suarez-Orozco (1991) mentioned
in relation to Latino-Americans in the United States.
According to the statements of Moroccan parents, their support of learn-
ing additional languages did not seem to be a hindrance to the maintenance
of the language of origin, in line with Schechter and Bayley’s (1977) findings
about Latino-Americans in the United States. Different immigrants actually
adopted different strategies with the goal of maintaining their mother tongue.
Concerning school achievement among children of Moroccan heritage,
there was an overall positive outcome for both sexes. The degree of satis-
faction ranged from satisfied to very satisfied according to various factors,
namely age, gender, social class, legal status, and family environment.
Education and Language Issues ● 97
However, many migrants, both men and women, try to improve their lan-
guage skills because they certainly know that lacking command of the target
European language is a significant barrier to communication and to their inte-
gration in the host society. Some take evening classes, some are helped by associa-
tions because they do not want to remain dependent on their children or others.
Naima and Fatiha, two female cleaners in their late thirties from the north
of Morocco, have lived in Germany for over 19 years and take evening classes
in order to be able to speak and write German. When they first arrived in this
country, they did not speak a word of German. For their transactions, they
needed a translator, usually a family member or friend. But now, they are
quite fluent in the language. Naima had this to tell me:
It was extremely hard for me to communicate with people here when I first
came to Germany with my mother. I spoke only French and Arabic, not
German. I was frustrated since I could not do any errands on my own or find
a job. Now, after many language classes and certificates, I feel confident, and
I am optimistic to find a better job in the future, especially that I am taking
computing skills in order to become a secretary.
But luckily Halima dissuaded him from signing, and she fought to continue
her general studies because of her good grades, and recently she managed to
obtain a degree in chemistry.
The difficult access to proper education is probably also the result of inad-
equate migration policies. Mehdi, a 29-year-old software engineer in France,
explained:
I think initially, the French authorities did not believe that these immigrants
would have children, and anyway, for them, the children of immigrants were
only good as a potential workforce. So there was no social or educational sup-
port for these children. This is why their schools directed them to vocational
training. However, many of these students felt disoriented, as they loathed
what they were studying, and many eventually dropped out of school. Because
of lack of support, a few of them turned to drugs and to delinquency.
1980s seem to appreciate education more than the first wave of migrants,
and their children have a higher probability to finish 12 years of education.
The findings also reveal that the young Moroccans who stayed in the
home country had also the same probability of spending not more than nine
years on average in school (Ennaji 2005, ch. 10). In terms of their qualifica-
tions and performance, young immigrants were very much comparable to
their neighbors than to their cousins who did not migrate. Girls of Moroccan
heritage had more probability to reach university than boys, as female sec-
ond-generation migrants competed with their European neighbors to achieve
more qualifications and higher education. The social milieu, notably the par-
ents’ occupations and educational level, had an impact on the educational
attainment of their children. The blue-collar worker with low education has
less probability to ensure high qualifications for his children than a qualified
worker. The same remark applies to the European non-migrant neighbors.
In the Netherlands, Moroccan students are more likely to be in schools that
disallow pursuing higher education, and their chances to enter university are
rather slim in comparison with native students. There are many reasons for this
tendency, but suffice it to mention the factor of merit, the low educational level
of parents, lack of command of Dutch language, and discrimination. Because of
their limited qualifications and opportunities, most of the students end up doing
a manual job and earning a low income (Amersfoort and Doomernik 2005:
83). After about 25 years of the community’s existence in the Netherlands, the
Dutch educational system was only able to manage to send one single student of
Moroccan origin to university in the academic year of 1986/87 (De Haas 2009).
Since then, the representation of Moroccan students in Dutch universi-
ties has been steadily increasing. The number of students of Moroccan origin
was 170 in 1997, 154 in 1998, 175 in 1999, 239 in 2000 and 203 in 2001
(Severiens and Wolff 2008). On the other hand, the accumulative dropout
rate was respectively 24.21 percent in 1997, 25.20 percent in 1998 and
27.88 percent in 1999 (Jamai 2012).3
As the first generation of Moroccan migrants are preparing themselves for
their retirement, the second and third generations are increasingly moving
toward jobs within the European Union requiring higher levels of education and
sophisticated training. In 2010, over 90,000 Moroccan students were studying
in European universities, where the majority of them selected subjects such as
computer science, economics, engineering, and social studies (Daoud 2011).
I wear Western clothes, I dye my hair and wear colored blue eye-lenses and lis-
ten to music in the street using my iPod. I am French from Moroccan descent
and I feel like other students. I am well integrated, and I study hard to get
the best grades in order to succeed in my studies because I aspire to become a
medical doctor in the future.
Various approaches have shown that once the learners know their roots
and accept their own identities, they have a sense of control over their own
development and what they want to achieve (Manço and Tap 1999: 183).
This consolidates their self-confidence and self-esteem and facilitates their
integration. Thus, immersion in the culture of origin seems to favor the
personal development of the migrant and the reduction of identity tensions
arising from a multicultural context.
There is a link between the objective of social mobility through school
attainment, identity, and the desire to meet the requirements needed for eco-
nomic integration in the host country. Most Moroccan migrant youth have
in mind to go to university to get a good degree that will help them achieve
social mobility and socioeconomic integration. Their attachment to their cul-
ture of origin does not prevent them from realizing their dreams nor does it
preclude integration (Amersfoort and Doomernik 2005).
104 ● Muslim Moroccan Migrants in Europe
Along with these findings, Manço and Tap (1999) consider that the fact
these young people claim identity is relevant in the sense that they are trying
to link their past full of struggle for survival with the experiences of the pres-
ent and expectations of the future. This balance is defined by El Moubaraki
(1989) as a harmony between the home country values and the requirements
of socioeconomic integration, and is the result of a concord between the
rules of conduct in the society of origin and the new values and aspirations.
Therefore, integration does not imply a rejection of the culture of origin, but
the articulation of these cultural specificities (see chapter 7).
This idea of integration is confirmed by Hassan (a 22-year-old univer-
sity biology student in France), who stressed the importance of his cultural
identity:
My parents are originally from Meknès, Morocco. I was born and raised here
in Dijon. I feel both Moroccan and French. I have two identities let’s say. I am
proud of my ethnicity as a Moroccan, Berber, and Muslim. My dream is to
become a computer scientist and earn a lot of money to be able to live well
and help my parents who support me a great deal. I am appreciated in class by
my teachers and class-mates, and I don’t feel discriminated against or bullied.
its own writing system, Tifinagh, which is less widespread. Berber language
has been used in Moroccan schools since 2003.7 It should be noted that it
has three major dialects in Morocco—Tarifit in the north, Tamazight in the
center, and Tachelhit in the south—and is essentially acquired and transmit-
ted orally as a mother tongue (Ennaji 2005: ch. 4).
A large number of Moroccans in Europe teach Arabic and Berber to their
children in order to preserve their culture of origin. For the majority of respon-
dents, it is essential to teach the mother tongue to their children because their
families speak it, and when they go back to Morocco on vacation they will
need it. Mohamed (46, caretaker in Germany) was concerned about this issue:
Only two out of ten did not teach the mother tongue to their offspring—
mostly women married to Western fathers. At home, they spoke the host
country language to their children to help them communicate with their
classmates in school. Halima (35-year-old engineer in Spain) told me:
I speak only Spanish to my son Rachid because his father is Spanish and both
don’t understand Arabic. Rachid is in elementary school and he needs to use
good Spanish when talking to his friends and to have a very good level at
school . . . knowing the language is very important for his school achievement.
It’s false what the media say. There are only a few kids of immigrants in Spanish
schools, and they are often times much disciplined, hard working, and bril-
liant. This is just plain unfounded prejudice.
108 ● Muslim Moroccan Migrants in Europe
Table 6.1 The major ten languages spoken in the UK, adapted from the 2011 Census
teachers of Arabic with the support of the Qatar Foundation.14 Arabic classes
usually emphasize spoken communication, Arabic grammar, and vocabulary
(Extra and Gorter 2001).
In France, the teaching of Arabic and Berber has been progressing since
the 1970s. In 1999, Berber became one of the “non-territorial languages.”
Recall the diglossic dichotomy between Colloquial and Classical Arabic,
which are quite distinct at the phonological, morphological, and syntac-
tic levels. See Ennaji (2005, ch. 4) for examples and details on this point.
Colloquial Arabic is a mother tongue, learned orally and spontaneously,
whereas Classical Arabic is a written language that is the mother tongue of no
one and is associated with learned knowledge, religion, and media.15
As in many European countries, there are no statistical data regarding
language because the population census does not refer to mother tongues in
France. It is also hard to know which language Moroccan immigrants and
their children speak at home, Arabic or Berber. Chaker (1997) states that
Berberophones of Algerian origin represent 40 percent of the overall Algerian
diaspora in France, and Moroccan Berberophones make up 50 percent of
Moroccan immigrants. This would mean that over half a million Moroccans
in France speak Berber (Eurostat 2011).16
A good number of Moroccan students between the ages of 18 and 21 took
the Colloquial Arabic course as part of the baccalaureate exam. According
to Caubet (2001), a total of 529,611 students took Colloquial Arabic, and
1,751 took Berber in the 1999 baccalaureate exam. As many Moroccan chil-
dren do not usually take these courses, the actual number who speak Arabic
or Berber is much higher. The rate of success in Arabic exams was high (70
percent), showing a good mastery of the language. Altogether, around 10,000
students of North African origin (including Algerians and Tunisians) took
Colloquial Arabic exams in 1999, which reveals not only its vitality, but also
the great extent to which North African children have acquired and main-
tained the language (ibid.).
As we have mentioned above, Colloquial Arabic and/or Berber are largely
spoken in Moroccan families in Europe, where it is transmitted orally from
first to second generation. However, the variety of Arabic learned at school or
in evening classes is Classical Arabic, a prestigious form of Arabic.
France started teaching Classical and Colloquial Arabic in the sixteenth
century in the Collège des Lecteurs Royaux. Napoleon enhanced Arabic
instruction with the creation of l’Ecole Spéciale des Langues Orientales in
1795, where Classical and Colloquial Arabic were taught (ibid.). Since 1995,
Colloquial Arabic language and culture have been taught in primary and
secondary schools in cities with large North African communities, such as
Montpellier and Mantes.
Education and Language Issues ● 111
The children of North African origin felt proud that their culture had a place
at school and that their parents approved of the choice. Only a few parents of
French origin in Montpellier were reluctant, but most of their children had no
prejudice and felt happy to learn a new language. (Caubet 2000: 268)
Conclusion
This chapter has shown that language activities in the family environment
are dynamic and multidimensional; the social structure of participants, the
language functions, the styles of interaction and the degree of participation
of children are interrelated in a complex way.
Moroccan students are exposed to bilingual education in many European
countries; they aim to attain a good command of the different European
languages they are exposed to while learning and preserving their mother
tongues. We have seen how language loyalty and learning include more
than language skills, as they comprise new practices and language identi-
ties. Anxiety over integration and attachment to native language and culture
characterizes the actions of children and parents who, despite discrimination,
favor bilingual education as part of a family strategy.
PART III
Becoming Moroccan-European
T
his part focuses on the experiences of Moroccan Muslim migrants as
they interact with broader European societies. It includes four chap-
ters that discuss important issues of identity, integration, citizenship,
the close link between migration and development, and the major contribu-
tions of Moroccan communities in Europe, namely civil and political partici-
pation, socioeconomic development, social change, art, and culture.
This part argues that Moroccans in Europe participate actively in pub-
lic life and economic growth, which is a good reason for the extension of
citizenship and respect of migrants’ rights. Chapter 10 focuses on success
stories among Moroccan migrants in Europe, especially writers, artists, and
political and civil society leaders. This part aims to shed light on the enor-
mous contributions of migrants that should enrich the debate and inspire
decision-makers to adopt a positive attitude toward southern Mediterranean
migrants and to craft the necessary reforms in recognition of migrants’ ben-
eficial impact on host societies.
Chapter 7
Challenges of Integration
M
uslim Moroccan migrants encounter numerous hurdles upon their
arrival in the host country. They must adjust to a new climate, way
of life, code of conduct, and legislation. Their integration depends
on many factors, namely level of education, economic status, age, gender,
legal status, duration of residence, social support (or lack of it), attitude,
mastery of language and other skills, and personality traits. Migrants with a
high level of education often integrate more easily than those with low or no
education. Similarly, those with a good economic status, material resources,
positive attitude, and social support adapt faster than migrants with limited
resources, no family support, or a negative attitude. Adaptation causes stress
and feelings of isolation, and discrimination usually prevents migrants from
integrating.
The integration of Muslim minorities in Europe, specifically Moroccans,
has been of national and regional concern since the early 1980s. Public
debates and policies about minorities and multiculturalism are often regarded
with confusion and mistrust. Regardless of political and sociocultural obsta-
cles, minorities are expected to integrate into the host society and circumvent
communautarism and ghetto practices that might be understood as a rejec-
tion of the host nation (Phaneuf 2012).
Throughout the 1990s, diversity was celebrated as a central value (Young
1990; Roggeband and Verloo 2007). Conversely, since 9/11, multicultural-
ism as a societal project has been strictly criticized in Europe (Joppke 2004;
Kofman 2010; Vertovec 2010). It has been challenged as essentialist and revi-
talizing ethnic and cultural differences (Fraser 2000). Others have stressed the
risk of cultural separatism and isolation. Barry (2002: 3) points to the risks
of granting cultural groups special rights and suggests that “the specter that
now haunts Europe is one of strident nationalism, ethnic self-assertion and
the exaltation of what divides people at the expense of what unites them.”
116 ● Muslim Moroccan Migrants in Europe
probably face a population decrease over the next few decades.7 Thus, the
integration of Moroccan Muslims in European society is not an easy matter,
but it can be achieved through access to education, employment, tolerance,
respect of diversity, and participation in public life (see chapter 8).8
Like many other Muslim friends, Hajar has been trying to negotiate between
two worlds that most would see as incompatible: the Islamic culture of her
parents, and the Dutch culture where she was born and grew up.
The major aspiration of Moroccan migrants has been the realization of
their migration project, which is the improvement of their well being and that
of their families. Concerning the degree of realization of migratory projects,
49.7 percent of Moroccan migrants have realized the essential part, namely
in terms of education, employment, and housing, and 17.5 percent have fully
realized their project, according to a survey by El Manar Laalami (2002). This
difference is dependent on the factors of qualifications and age. The higher
the degree of qualifications of the migrant, the more successful he or she is in
the project. In addition, the older the migrants, the more achievements they
make. According to Saaf et al. (2009), 28.9 percent of Belgian-Moroccans
own their home in Belgium, 52.4 percent are tenants, and 15 percent live
in the family home. The degree of realization of projects also increases with
the duration of stay: the longer the migrant’s stay, the more likely that their
project is realized (Ennaji, 2010a). To determine the degree of integration of
immigrants into the host country, we will examine their sociability, potential
memberships in clubs and associations, political participation, and potential
exposure to segregation (in the work place or neighborhood).
Challenges of Integration ● 121
Among the people interviewed, about two-thirds declared that they were
quite integrated as they had friends in the host country; the remaining inter-
viewees acknowledged that they did not have any European friends. If we
consider the professional qualifications, the rate rises in relation to the degree
of integration (the degree of integration ranges from over half of non-qual-
ified workers to a vast majority of the well-qualified immigrants). Likewise,
as mentioned above, the rate of integration increases with the duration of
stay in the host society; for instance, those who have resided in Europe for
more than five years tended to integrate better than those who have lived in
a European country for just a year or two. By contrast, membership in clubs
and associations depended on the level of education and status: people with
no qualification or employment barely participated in any such activities.
In general, there is a positive perception of migrants, especially those with
a good socioeconomic status in the receiving society. For instance, engineers,
doctors, professors, artists, actors, NGO leaders, politicians, and experts are
held in high esteem. According to this survey, a slight majority of profes-
sionals have revealed their satisfaction with integration, in contrast with one
third who have declared that they feel rather excluded. The percentage can
be differentiated in connection with gender, as a vast majority of women feel
integrated against a little more than half of men.
This investigation also reveals that one out of three migrants has been
subject to racist behavior at work, and a quarter of them has experienced rac-
ist behavior in the neighborhood where they live. Kenza (33 years old), who
works in a health public service confirmed that racism was a fact of life in her
host country, France:
I used to spend most of the time at home doing housework or helping the
kids with their homework. But now that they are at university, I have more
free time, and I prefer to spend it in the association helping other women
and children to integrate into the host society. Civil society has offered me an
opportunity to be active and useful.
importance of the nuclear family and that exchanging visits with Moroccan
relatives and friends was limited. Hence, the Moroccan community in Europe
is multilayered and diverse (Saaf et al. 2009: 101).
By contrast, according to a recent survey realized by the French daily
Le Figaro in October 2012, 67 percent of French people believe that French
Muslims and immigrants of Muslim origin are not well integrated into French
culture, against 33 percent who believe otherwise. Similarly, 68 percent state
that this non-integration is due to the fact that Muslims refuse to integrate, and
52 percent think it is because there are too many cultural differences between
Muslim immigrants and French people in particular (See chapter 4).11
However, this survey by Le Figaro, which the French sociologist Raphaël
Liogier describes as “worrying for living together,”12 shows the way Muslim
migrants are perceived by the French at a time when, paradoxically, the
Muslim Moroccan immigrants for the most part feel quite integrated in the
host society. Thus, it would seem that while the host society has a nega-
tive attitude in general toward migrants, as they do not think that they have
integrated (enough or at all), the Muslim Moroccan immigrant community
perceive of themselves as being at least partially integrated.
In comparison with other European states, Belgium has been quite liberal. In
October 2007, a survey published by the EU rated Belgium third among 25 EU
countries in facilitating the settling-in of immigrants. The survey took into con-
sideration factors such as employment rights, anti-racism laws, and opportuni-
ties for permanent residence and family reunification. Belgium also gave foreign
immigrants the right to vote in local elections in 2004 (Saaf et al. 2009: 121).
The most important immigration legislation was passed in 2000, allowing
immigrants born in Belgium, having at least one Belgian parent, or residing
in the country for at least seven years, to become citizens. Those residing in
Belgium for over three years must satisfy language and cultural requirements
to obtain citizenship. The Belgian state officially recognizes Islam as one of
the major religions in the country. It helped create an Islamic organization
(the Belgian Muslim Council) to express the interests of the Muslim popula-
tion in Belgium. In 2001, the government recognized 75 mosques and began
paying the wages of the imams working in these mosques (International
Religious Freedom Report 2002).13
In 2004, there were 319 mosques in the country: Flanders (162), Wallonia
(80), Brussels (77). These mosques are usually in normal buildings that have
been transformed into prayer places. Only a few mosques have the tradi-
tional architecture with domes and minarets. The 2003 anti-discrimination
law in Belgium criminalizes any witnessed incitement to discrimination,
hate, or violence against a person or community. Under this law, imams
can be punished or deported if they make hate speeches or attack the state.
124 ● Muslim Moroccan Migrants in Europe
high-income Moroccan women and men feel more integrated in Dutch soci-
ety and less attached to their ethnic group than uneducated or low-income
Moroccans. In the following section, we will discuss facts and problems of
women’s integration.
Conclusion
It is self-evident that integration is crucial for the well-being of migrants
and social cohesion in the host country. It is critical for Europeans states to
126 ● Muslim Moroccan Migrants in Europe
T
ransnational links between immigrants of different origin are estab-
lished by maintaining their own traditions and identities, as evi-
denced by the cultural diversity of many European cities, creating
a kind of globalization from below. The globalized city allows immigrants
to participate in public life and city management (Rouse 1995). As a case
in point, many Moroccans have become members of parliament or of gov-
ernment cabinets in Europe; for example, Rachida Dati, former minister of
justice in France, and Ahmed Aboutaleb, member of the Dutch parliament
and mayor of Rotterdam (see chapter 10).
This new development changes the traditional models of migration and
poses new questions on identity and citizenship. What does citizenship entail
in terms of rights and obligations? How do national identity and loyalty
interact when people live in more than one country and have more than
one nationality? These issues, which pose significant challenges to the states’
administrative systems, will be addressed in this chapter focusing on Muslim
Moroccan migrants and their descendents (Vertovec 1998, 1999, 2004; Pries
2001; Lazăr2011).
Moroccans in Europe have four distinct identities: they are North African,
Muslim, immigrant, and have home or host country citizenship or both.
These identities are rendered complex by age, gender, class, language, edu-
cation, and religion. Evidently, the identity questions encountered by a
Moroccan Muslim male immigrant in Europe would be more complicated
than those faced by a Polish Christian male immigrant, for example. Because
of their brown complexion, religious dress, and hair form, they are visibly
non-European and are likely to be categorized as “immigrant” or “African,”
which can lead to discrimination. Learning how Moroccans cope with and
negotiate cultural identity in Europe in different contexts is important in the
fight against discrimination and marginalization. Most Moroccans feel good
about their migratory experience by adopting a positive attitude, which helps
to understand how individuals manage integration and identity issues.
As mentioned in chapters 6 and 7, because young Moroccan-Europeans
who descend from immigration are exposed from their earliest years to
two different cultural systems—the culture of the host country and that of
Morocco—it is difficult for them to achieve cultural coherence or build a
cultural identity or multiple identities. How do these young people reconcile
between the two cultures? How can they build a national identity at a time
when the social environment in which they live denies them an identity? Do
they identify themselves as Moroccan or European? These are the questions
that we will address in this chapter.
Born in Europe or arrived in Europe after their birth, having kept or not
their nationality of origin, young people facing the problem of identity con-
struction fall into three categories. First, those who have adopted syncretic
cultural identity have an active identity strategy, which draws from the two
systems of cultural reference (Chourra 2006); while integrating into the com-
munity of young people in the host country, they do not reject their tradi-
tional values. Most of them plan to integrate the host society by continuing
their studies, and then entering into a profession. They wish to fit into the
society by adopting the European way of life without denying their roots.
The second category claims a religious identity, yet they do not have the
same relationship with their origins. Their religious Islamic identity is for them
a source of strength and balance between the home and host country cultures.
These young people do not feel affected by the confrontation between Islam
and Western modernity; in effect, they reconcile religion and citizenship in
a smooth way. The only problem for them is how to be accepted as they are,
namely, European Muslims, insofar as European countries are secular, with the
prevalent religion being Christianity. This category of youth adheres to spiri-
tual Islam, which is more modern than that of their parents, and their religious
practices are more elaborate, researched, analyzed, and less traditional.
Identity and Citizenship ● 129
I dye my hair blonde, and I wear blue (lenses) to make my eyes appear blue.
I like it this way. I’m French and I was born in France. I love the French atti-
tude and civilization. French is my native language, not Arabic.
I’m a French citizen. I grew up in this country, got married to a French woman,
have three kids. I work in a big electronics company. I have many French
friends. In fact, all my friends are French. I hardly know or speak to Moroccans.
The denial of origins is what distinguishes this group from the previous
ones. Most of these people were either born in France or spent most of their
lives there. In their eyes, the culture of the host country is more tolerant
and liberal, and they are keen to minimize the antagonisms with this cul-
ture. Some adopt this strategy out of fear of rejection or by choice. However,
although they are less numerous than the previous two categories, they are
very different from them.
To the question whether they felt Moroccan or European, 58 interviewees
chose Moroccan, 32 of them mentioned their European host country, and
90 responded that they felt both Moroccan and European. In answering this
question, respondents stated that the longer they stayed in the host country,
the less attached to Moroccan traditions they became, irrespective of whether
they had European citizenship or not. Assia (54 years old), who came to
Belgium at the age of 19, noted that even if she wanted to be one hundred
percent Belgian, Moroccan comportment and behavior would continue to
recur and have the upper hand:
Ali (49 years old), who has been working as an engineer in London for
seven years, confided that he juggles the Moroccan and the British cultures:
Some felt European, not because they have lost their Moroccan cultural
identity, but because they have acquired European citizenship—some to
secure a permanent stay in the host country, others to avoid going back to
Morocco because of problems with family members or because they think
Morocco has no opportunities for them.
Thus, migration flows have immediate and important consequences for
individuals and society. The first consequence is spatial—space is the most
crucial basis of migrants since the migration project has a direct link with
the abandonment of the country of origin for the host country. The second
consequence is related to the immigrant’s strategy to live in a different social
context, a different society in which he or she has to adjust while contribut-
ing to its transformation or redefinition. This transformation of space can
be considered from the “intermediate spaces between the individual and
the State” (Aubarell and Aragal 2004), since different cultures and identities
come together in a space that had been designed as a homogeneous soci-
ety. This raises the problem of managing cultural diversity in conformity to
its history and its new reality in order to reconcile identity, citizenship, and
social cohesion.
Well-established immigrant communities in the receiving countries
maintain cultural and trade links to their home countries. These links are
extremely important contributors to the continued economic development
of the sending countries, but they also contribute to social and cultural
changes in receiving countries: witness the transformation of Europe’s major
cities by vibrant immigrant communities (Phaneuf 2012).
Their attachment to the country of origin is manifested in the family struc-
ture and social lives of Moroccan migrants. For example, over 86 percent of
Moroccans in Belgium have spouses of Moroccan origin, compared with only
8.5 percent who are married to Europeans (Saaf et al., 2009: 121). While a third
of the Moroccans interviewed own their own homes in Europe, two-thirds of
them have purchased property or own a business in Morocco. In the case of
Moroccan immigrants in Belgium, 60.6 percent are homeowners in Morocco
Identity and Citizenship ● 131
These are just a few quotes of Moroccan immigrants that confirm their
dual identity, which attests to a deep attachment both to the country of
origin, Morocco, and to the host country. There are many comments in the
data collected that support these findings.
Hamid (59 years old, resident in Brussels) considers Morocco his “mother
country” and Belgium his “adopted home country.” In the interview he also
said:
I have been working for 39 years in Belgium. I have my family here, and
I own an apartment where we live. I also have an apartment in Morocco. I go
to Morocco once a year, because I feel profoundly Moroccan. But I am very
attached to Belgium, because my life is here.
Multiple Identities
Moroccan immigrants are generally united by a sense of belonging to a nation
and ardently claim their Moroccan nationality. Even the vast majority of the
naturalized (those in possession of the passport of the host country) feel that
they are Moroccan, Arab or Amazigh, and Muslim. I have collected these
feelings during formal and informal interviews with Moroccan immigrants
in Europe. They are unlikely to claim their new citizenship, with some excep-
tions or with the exception of the second generation, because it does not
mean anything deep for their identity (ElKhayat 2004).
Another no less important identity that Moroccans in Europe have is their
Islamic identity. About one third of interviewees feel that they are first and
foremost Muslims before being Moroccan or European. They identify with
a neutral transnational Islam, which illustrates that religiosity is high among
Moroccans in Europe, all generations alike. About half of the respondents
stated that their religious beliefs have been consolidated over the last few
years. This finding is corroborated by the survey data of Saaf et al. (2009:
109). A Dutch-Moroccan woman, 52 years old, says that Islam is very impor-
tant for her as a faith, because Islam gives her respect and autonomy. She
explains:
I’m proud to be Muslim. Islamic values are human values. They teach us to be
good to each other and to be helpful. I believe in moderate Islam which is open
to other religions and cultures. I pass on these values to my children, who are
also practicing Muslims.
Identity and Citizenship ● 133
Even when the original national sentiment fades in favor of that of the
new citizenship, Moroccans remain faithful to their Muslim religion. Indeed,
their Islamic identity is as strong as their national identity because of the rise
of Muslim fundamentalism since the 1990s (see chapter 3). Individuals may
have become French, Belgian, Spanish, or Dutch, but they have remained
Muslim Moroccans.
For the Moroccan migrants, Islam is conceived not only as a unifying ele-
ment but also as a marker of identity or even citizenship. Many Moroccan
immigrants identify themselves as Muslims first before giving their nation-
ality. Immigrants mix generally “under the banner of Islam” as stressed
by ElKhayat (2004), because it is the unifying element of all immigrants
who have a cultural identity that is structured around Islam. Islam is what
enables the migrants to preserve their cultural and religious values, giving
meaning to the migration process, which does not operate an irreversible
loss of being.
For many Moroccan Muslim migrants, the work visa or passport of the
host country is only a travel document to which they attach secondary impor-
tance. They perceive these documents as passes to facilitate their movement;
that is, documents that help them cross borders and give them rights such as
access to social security and family benefits.
It should not be forgotten that the loss of identity is dangerous for peo-
ple with strong cultural and national identity feelings. One cannot waive
one’s identity while adopting the values and principles of the host country
and blending in religion, morality, and language. Such assimilation is fatal
because it leads to loss of self and the end of one’s membership in a strong
group identity.
Most Moroccans in Europe consider their country of origin as the most
beautiful in the world, even forgetting the reasons that pushed them to leave.
They continue to boast the Moroccan lifestyle by furnishing their homes in
the Moroccan way, watching Moroccan satellite television, cooking Moroccan
tagine and couscous, and organizing festivals and religious ceremonies. These
feelings of belonging to the culture of origin and permanent nostalgia for the
home country are generally more apparent among women than men to the
point that some women (of the first generation mainly) refuse to learn the
language of the host society. They see their role as limited to the preservation
of Islamic values and Moroccan cultural identity. The fact that they are very
attached to the Moroccan identity sometimes prevents them from integrating
into European society.
Amina (Franco-Moroccan, 28 years old) underlines the weight of preju-
dice and discrimination against migrant Muslim communities in France. She
134 ● Muslim Moroccan Migrants in Europe
explains that with the advent of new immigrants from Eastern Europe, espe-
cially the Polish, Kosovares, and Slavs, Moroccan immigrants have become
less valued. She goes on to say:
Religion is considered a major identity marker; if you are from Eastern Europe
you are better respected because you are Christian. Moroccans are at a disad-
vantage because they are Muslim. Whenever there is violence or a problem
in which Moroccans or Algerians are involved, the authorities and the media
point out that these are Muslims or young Islamic extremists. Everything is
explained by religion when North Africans are involved.
One can safely state that Moroccans with dual citizenship have for the
most part adopted the principles of democracy built around the values of
freedom, justice, gender equity, tolerance, and respect. The embracing of
these values by Muslim Moroccan immigrants reflects the emergence of an
individualized Islam that promotes autonomy and freedom of choice, includ-
ing the choice to observe or not the constraints of Islamic tradition (Ramadan
2013; Modood et al. 2006; Phillip 2009).1
The majority of Muslim Moroccan immigrants practice Islam privately
because they are not interested in ideologies propagated in mosques and
Islamic centers in Europe. This shows, contrary to popular belief, that Islam
can be circumscribed in private space, and it is possible to separate religion
from secular life. In addition to this private type of Islam, there is ideological
Islam that is organized in associations, mosques and Islamic centers (Hamidi
2003; Ennaji forthcoming). Even in the case of associations of ideological
domination, authorization from local authorities is critical, causing them to
introduce changes in their attitudes and adapt Islam to the principles of secu-
lar European society.
In immigration, there is an overlap between particularism and
universalism—Muslim immigrants seeking to reconstitute the cultural life of
the village in containing the Moroccan community are often also looking for
wider membership by joining groups with multiples identities.
were almost exclusively Muslim), it was believed by the government and civil
society that they constituted a threat to security and social cohesion, making
them the odd ethnic group whose assimilation was extremely difficult and
slow. The case of the first-generation Moroccan immigrants who refused to
ask for French citizenship in the 1970s clinched the argument that the inte-
gration of Muslim immigrants was impossible. Only 11 percent of Moroccan
immigrants and 13 percent of Algerian guest workers had acquired French
citizenship in 1990 (Lucassen 2005: 193).
For the second generation, obtaining French citizenship was not a prob-
lem, as most of them acquired it by birth. But the real issue for the French
authorities is that most of the second- and third-generation migrants are actu-
ally Muslim who may be impacted by Muslim fundamentalism. However, as
noted by Roy (1994) and Lucassen (ibid.), the majority of French youth of
North African origin are more influenced by French culture than by Islam,
as most of them do not implement the major principles of Islam like prayer,
haj (pilgrimage), and Ramadan (fasting). The fear of the Moroccan community
in France and of Islam as a religion is groundless. The violence that the suburbs
witness from time to time is not due to Muslim extremism, but to the frustra-
tions of the youth who suffer from unemployment and social exclusion. Thus,
their culture and religion do not represent an obstacle to their integration, but
rather discrimination and racism are the real hurdles, and the received old idea
that the “Arabs” are impossible to integrate should be scrapped for good.
In the Netherlands, a large number of Moroccans choose by conviction their
Muslim identity, because it gives them a sense of belonging.2 This is also the con-
clusion of the PhD research thesis prepared by Ketner (2008) at the University
of Groningen. The researcher, who worked on the issues of integration in the
province of Overijssel, stated that the majority of respondents claimed that they
could not do anything about their Moroccan identity, while they have con-
sciously chosen Islam as a religion. “Of course, religion is one of the things that
they receive at home, but by paying attention to the respondents I have found
out that the Moroccan youth have adopted Islam of their free choice: you can
choose between being a Muslim or not,” says Ketner. The distant relationship
between the young Moroccans and their host country is ascribed, according to
the researcher, to racial discrimination. “Muslims suffer from racial discrimina-
tion, but it appears that Islam gives them more power.”3 However, she affirms
that racism does not affect everyone negatively, for some young people work
harder to improve the reputation of the Moroccan community.
Adolescents face many challenges in their daily lives, such as living between
two cultures, their experiences with racial segregation, living with parents,
and creating their identity as Muslims in a non-Islamic country. Ketner
believes that Islam gives youth the self-confidence and support needed to
Identity and Citizenship ● 137
cope with the challenges and contradictions of Muslim and Dutch cultures.
The Islamic culture also provides them with special help in their conversa-
tions with their parents.
The study also shows that young people, mostly from the cities of Gouda,
Groningen, and Rotterdam, do not take their religion from their parents in
a mechanical way. Most respondents (95 percent) say they get their informa-
tion independently from Internet sites, libraries, as well as mosques. Similarly,
they share their knowledge with each other, which brings about their own
perceptions of Islam, away from what is believed by their parents.
It is no secret that young people of Moroccan origin are on top of the list
of priorities in most municipalities of the Netherlands, because of the prob-
lems they cause or the hard conditions they live in. In a statement to Radio
Netherlands International, Abdelouahed Abali, an expert on youth issues,
stated that the root causes of youth turning to their Islamic identity at the
expense of a sense of belonging to the motherland can be summarized in four
points: (1) a sense of repression in the home country and the belief that they
do not have the freedom to choose the identity they want; (2) the feeling that
their identity is suppressed in Morocco; (3) the belief that Islam gives them a
sense of respect and valorises them as individuals; and (4) the conviction that
Islam belongs to them and no one can extort it from them. The other factor,
according to Abali, is that Moroccans in the Netherlands seek to escape their
negative image in the media by turning to Islamic identity.
According to Habib Kaddouri, member of the Moroccan association for
joint action in the Netherlands, showing their adherence to Muslim identity
does not provide an answer to the problems they suffer, like their bad repu-
tation and discrimination against Muslim immigrants. They are “still at an
experimental stage of exploring their religion, and thinking that their attach-
ment to Islam would remove their negative image. In reality, their religiosity
does not help them face their dilemmas,” Kaddouri declared in a statement to
Radio Netherlands International. He added that young people actually want
to achieve some kind of “rehabilitation” of the Islamic religion in a challenge
to Dutch politicians, particularly the extreme right-wing among them, who
accuse Islam of extremism and backwardness.
Their degree of religiosity is higher in Amsterdam, but also in other European
large cities where there is a huge Muslim immigrant agglomeration such as
Brussels, Dusseldorf, Rome, and the banlieues of Paris (Saaf et al., 2009).
Political Participation
The political incorporation of immigrants as new citizens in the host society
is crucial to theoretical debate, political scrutiny, and immigrant integration
138 ● Muslim Moroccan Migrants in Europe
policy. However, there is a shortage of studies and fieldwork about the politi-
cal participation of immigrants. Integration implies access to political rights
combined with the attachment to the national identity. Thus, from an integra-
tion perspective, immigrants with a long duration of residence and high levels
of education are likely to steadily move from ethnic to national identities,
and to political participation in the host country. Nevertheless, immigrant
populations, because of dual citizenship or mixed identity, usually nurture
political attachments and participation in both home and host countries. As
a result, their political choices and identities reflect new “transnational” types
of citizenship (Phalet and Swyngedouw 2002).
Political participation among Moroccans in Europe is normally a good
indicator of active citizenship. However, only a third of respondents asserted
their membership in political parties. More than two-thirds of them said that
they had no affinity with any political party in the host country.
Most Moroccan communities in Europe are actively involved in informal
political and civil society activities. They work for anti-racist associations,
youth clubs, charities, school boards, and volunteer organizations. Overall,
the informal political participation of the Moroccan communities is strongly
directed toward the host country.
Political participation is a means whereby active citizenship is put into
practice. One of the most important forms of this participation is voting.
More than two-thirds of naturalized Moroccans, who have the right to vote
in their host country, declared that they actually took part in elections. One
third of Moroccans with a European citizenship adhered to political par-
ties, mostly the socialist, liberal democratic, or ecologist parties. Very few of
them adhered to extremist left-wing or right-wing parties. Samir (Franco-
Moroccan, age 45) declared that he belonged to the Socialist Party and that
he had always voted socialist. In his testimony, he gave the reasons:
About half of those who did not participate in the host country’s political
life were either non-citizens (and do not therefore have the right to vote), or
they had a low educational level and socioeconomic status that made them
oblivious to anything political. Quite a few chose to be apolitical for personal
Identity and Citizenship ● 139
I can barely read and write, but my spoken French is acceptable. I was married
to a Moroccan from the Rif and my kids were all born in France. Although
I have been living in France for so long, I have never taken any classes or done
any advocacy training. I am just a housewife and mother. I have devoted all my
time to my children’s education. Now they are in high school and university.
I tried six years ago to obtain French citizenship, but unfortunately a French
administrator in the immigration office wanted to blackmail me . . . he said
he would help me get this citizenship if I slept with him, so I decided to give
up the whole process. But now that my kids are young men and ladies, I will
again apply for my citizenship which I will eventually get because my children
are French.
The vast majority of Moroccans who have obtained Belgian citizenship here
belong to the working class; they work for long hours doing difficult tasks for
small salaries. Their situation is precarious. Many are unemployed and live on
the welfare, and spend most of their time in cafés.
Fatiha (20 years old), a young Belgian female student at Antwerp University,
originally from Morocco, stated that she was pessimistic about the future. She
described the situation as dramatic:
When I got my French citizenship in 2005 after a long battle with the
immigration office in Montpellier, I felt relieved and happy because that
would be the end of the ordeal of having visas and migration documents
renewed every time. When I came to see my mother and family back in
Morocco, I told no one about it. I told only my eldest brother, who is a
teacher at the university, because he recommended that I should get French
citizenship since I was married and had two kids there; then I told him in a
low voice that I actually got it finally, and he congratulated me. But I would
not tell others.
142 ● Muslim Moroccan Migrants in Europe
French men and women look upon Moroccans who are highly educated and
well dressed with respect. They view positively those Moroccan immigrants
who have made it at the economic and financial levels. They respect you if you
are a professional or a wealthy businessman, or if you are a well mediatized art-
ist, singer, writer, politician, etc.
Nevertheless, many of those born in France, the beurs, can hardly make it and
have a hard time finding a job although they have a good level of education.
The media often convey a negative image of beurs, worsening their marginal-
ization in French society, as we mentioned above.
According to French statistics, the North African community in France
is composed of three categories: (1) the North African immigrant popula-
tion, (2) North Africans naturalized French, and (3) French population
whose parents are North African immigrants. The North African immigrants
who were born in Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, or Mauritania, and kept their
own nationality are thus one category. The North Africans who have been
naturalized French are not considered immigrants (Lucassen 2005: 187).
Identity and Citizenship ● 143
Conclusion
The participation of Moroccans in European political life is fundamentally
informal and principally geared to strengthen social cohesion in the host
country. As concerns the cultural dimension of identity, we have seen that
Moroccan communities have developed a multiplicity of identities and
behaviors, albeit with different layers of cultural adjustment according to
generation, gender, and class. While most host countries admit some level of
cultural diversity in the private space, they do not tolerate as much the visibil-
ity of ethnic cultures in public life, which creates racial and ethnic tensions
and weakens opportunities for Muslim migrants’ integration.
The majority of Moroccans in Europe express a temperate religiosity that
is open to other cultural values and codes of conduct, such as secularism.
Consequently, Islam in Europe has become a neutral individualized religion
compatible with modernity and democracy. European states can then take
the necessary steps to join forces with the predominantly moderate Islamic
organizations to promote a European modern soft Islam. This kind of policy
would be precious in the integration of Muslim immigrants and a valuable
means in the fight against religious extremism.
144 ● Muslim Moroccan Migrants in Europe
Migrants’ Contributions to
Development and Social Change
T
he socioeconomic impact of Muslim Moroccan migrants on the host
countries is generally positive. They have contributed to the develop-
ment and growth of the economy and to cultural diversity in Europe,
as we saw in the previous chapter (Khachani 2009a).
For a long time, migration and development have been two separate pol-
icy areas. In destination countries, migration authorities focus on control-
ling migration flows, while development agencies mainly work in the home
countries, with little coordination existing between the two (Van Hear and
Sørensen 2003: 6). In recent years, however, the Moroccan government has
explored ways to harness resources from the diaspora to promote develop-
ment. New institutions have been created to maintain ties with Moroccan
migrants, such as Morocco’s Council for the Moroccan Community Abroad,
Hassan II Foundation for Moroccans Residing Abroad, the Ministry in
Charge of Moroccans Living Abroad, and a variety of policy measures, such
as investment facilities, have been adopted.
The capacity for entrepreneurship among Moroccan immigrants is
remarkable. According to official French statistics in 2012, there were over
60,000 Moroccan businessmen and entrepreneurs in Europe employing over
1 million workers.1 Money transfers made in 2012 by Moroccan immigrants
in Europe to their home country totaled approximately 3.5 billion dollars,
two-thirds of which originated in France.2 This explains why the Moroccan
government fosters migration, as we shall develop in the section on remit-
tances below.3
The low level of return of Moroccan migrants to their home country
(about 10 percent) can be ascribed to the considerable money transfers these
migrants make to Morocco, which are crucial for the well-being of their fami-
lies left behind. Another obstacle to return is Moroccan bureaucracy, which
146 ● Muslim Moroccan Migrants in Europe
Remittances
Like other less-developed emigration countries where remittances sent home
by migrants represent a significant source of income, Morocco receives
Migrants’ Contributions to Development and Social Change ● 149
8000
7000
6000
5000
4000
3000
2000
1000
0 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010
or friends (Khachani 2005; Sasin 2008; Bilgili and Weyel, 2009). In addi-
tion, Moroccan migrants bring home a large number of goods and gifts,
spare parts, technological materials, clothes, furniture, etc. Many migrants
also invest in Morocco by building houses, buying apartments, or starting
businesses.
Moreover, ties between Moroccan migrants and their home country
seem to be undergoing a major transformation. Belahrach, who after years
in Europe moved back to Casablanca in 1998 to run a labor organization,
thinks that Moroccans in Europe are agents of change (Sørensen 2004).
He believes that they are progressively more connected with the Moroccan
business world and are, unlike their fathers, taking big risks in their invest-
ments. In a BBC documentary, in which Belahrach was interviewed, a young
Moroccan migrant stated that: “We are not like our parents’ generation. They
hadn’t studied and didn’t know their rights. They could write checks and send
money home and that was it.” (BBC News Nov. 9, 2002)
According to Khachani (2005), immigrants with a low level of education
send more money and invest more back home than those who are highly
educated. In recent years, housing stands out as the main investment in the
home country. By Moroccan standards, investment in housing is important
as it is viewed by the community back home as a sign of social prestige and
success. Moroccans also invest in their destination countries by owning busi-
nesses and homes, as we have already mentioned.
The motivations for these remittances reveal the migrants’ attachment
to their country of origin (Sasin 2008). Moreover, government publicity
campaigns and financial incentives, such as a fair exchange rate, are meant
to attract the maximum remittances to the country via foreign exchange
accounts and wire transfers, and create a stable macroeconomic environment
(Khachani 2005). The government, which has a positive attitude toward emi-
gration, creates a suitable context for remittances and encourages the formal
channels to transfer money—the Office of Exchange in Rabat mentions that
around 60 percent of remittances are sent through banking systems, 15 per-
cent by post, another 15 percent is done on a personal basis, and only 10 per-
cent is transferred through other mechanisms such as money transfer agents
(Sasin 2008; Bilgili and Weyel 2009).13
Morocco has opened several bank offices in Europe to facilitate money
transfers, such as Wafabank, Banque Marocaine du Commerce Extérieur
(BMCE), Banque Populaire and others (De Haas 2005). In 1989 the Banque
Al Amal was opened with the goal of helping to finance emigrants’ projects
(Collyer et al. 2009). In the early 1990s, the bank helped create more than
a thousand new jobs a year, and today it carries on co-financing investment
projects with substantial loans and low interest rates (ibid.).
Migrants’ Contributions to Development and Social Change ● 151
around 250 associations (Schüttler 2008). It receives a wide support from dif-
ferent institutions and from retired French professionals (Schüttler 2008) and
has also accepted financial aid from the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs
and the EU. The work of Migrations et Développement provides an interest-
ing instance of the efficient use of migrant capital in sustainable development
in the home country. The organization has a rich experience in running local
development projects in coordination with public administration and inter-
national donors (Lacroix 2009; Bilgili and Weyel 2009).
Some NGOs are engaged in charitable activities that may occur irregu-
larly. They may at times respond to a request from an association, a village,
or an individual. Their activities often consist of donating goods or equip-
ment to a school or hospital (for example, an ambulance, a wheelchair, a
school bus, or computers) or paying hospitalization costs for deprived indi-
viduals. As has been noticed about the Moroccan community in France and
Germany, charitable work is generally organized in rural areas more than in
towns or cities, since migrants have a stronger attachment to their region of
origin rather than to neighboring towns or cities (Schüttler 2007; Bilgili and
Weyel 2009).17
In recent years a growing number of highly skilled Moroccan emigrants
have created professional associations for special scientific interest groups.
Among the effective associations comprise L’Association des Informaticiens
en France, L’Association Marocaine des Biologistes en France, Réseau des
Intellectuels Marocains en Europe, and Savoir et Développement en France
(Khachani 2005). Savoir et Développement was founded in 1999 in France
by a group of scientists from various fields, including mathematics, computer
science, economics, and business administration. It has over 200 Moroccan
experts in Europe, the United States, and Canada. The association’s major
objective is to promote scientific and technological exchanges that will foster
development in Morocco (Bilgili and Weyel 2009).
The projects run by Savoir et Développement are development oriented.
They promote innovation in the scientific domains like the pharmaceutical
industry. They have implemented a Euro-Mediterranean proficiency team
in micro-technology, water purification and preservation, and a project on
urban waste treatment in Morocco (Khachani 2005; Bouoiyour 2006). The
association has also established agreements with Moroccan universities and
research institutes to foster multidisciplinary and multi-sector collaboration
involving experts and enterprises. In this regard, it established a cooperative
linkage with the Centre National pour la Recherche Scientifique et Technique
in Morocco (Bouoiyour 2006).18
The Moroccan community in Europe equally invests in various entre-
preneurial activities. As previously mentioned, their major investment is in
154 ● Muslim Moroccan Migrants in Europe
Conclusion
Moroccan migrants contribute to development and social change in both
the host and home countries. They use several channels to influence growth
and social development. In this chapter the focus has been placed on co-
development, remittances, the contribution of skilled migrants, and the out-
put of migrants’ NGOs.
With the help of associations and civil society organization, immigrants
gradually integrate into the host country, especially the second and third
generations, and they endeavor to thwart the economic and social exclusion
suffered by the community as a whole. They have become independent indi-
viduals with a responsibility to contribute to the development of Europe and
Morocco, in addition to the well-being of their families. Entrepreneurship
has allowed many Moroccan migrants to free themselves of the old mentality
of the victimized migrant and has opened doors for men and women to be
creative, innovative, and productive.
As Sørensen (2004) suggests, to convince migrants to collaborate with the
state and foster investments it would be ideal to at least secure their political
participation at the local and national levels in both the host and home coun-
tries. Nevertheless, sending remittances back home can cause further stress
to the migrants who have to work harder than the average European worker
in order to save up. This may be at the expense of their health and their
children’s education. Additionally, the family left behind in Morocco may
156 ● Muslim Moroccan Migrants in Europe
become dependent on remittances and too lazy to work. Some such families
prefer to remain idle while waiting for the money transfer to arrive from
Europe. Thus, the general attitudes toward migrants as “cash cows” must be
changed. Migrants have their own lives to pursue in the settlement country
and, being a vulnerable group, the governments need to address their issues
and reduce their pain and frustrations back home and in the host country.
Policies need to be changed in order to guarantee larger investments while
protecting the rights of migrants to a decent life in the host country and the
country of origin, especially during periods of recession, such as the current
global financial crisis (see chapter 2; Ennaji 2010b; Killian 2006).
Chapter 10
Success Stories
T
here is a tendency in Europe to focus on the negative facets of migra-
tion and problems linked to migrants, such as unemployment,
exploitation, discrimination, and crime, although migration has
also advantages and bright sides. Regardless of this off-putting context, most
Moroccan migrants manage to earn a living in the host country, and on top
of that they actively participate in public life and contribute to sustainable
development and intercultural dialogue in Europe and Morocco, as discussed
in the previous chapter.
There are a myriad of success stories among the Moroccan diaspora in
Europe. This chapter, which will discuss some of these triumph cases, is
divided into two main sections; the first section focuses on prominent
Moroccan writers and artists, and the second highlights famous leaders in the
world of politics and civil society. Let us start with examples of well-known
successful Moroccan writers and artists.
present rise of political Islam and fundamentalism. He wrote that Islam is often
“grasped only as a caricature,” affirming that “the mistake we make is to attribute
to religions the errors and fanaticism of human beings.” Personally “incapable
of mysticism”—though he respects the Sufi mystics—Ben Jelloun is a secular
Muslim who believes “religion has to stay in the heart, not in politics. It is private.”
The book also clarifies the major concepts that have come to dominate the
media—Islamism, jihad, fundamentalism, fatwa (a religious opinion), ter-
rorism, and crusade—offering lucid and balanced explanations, not only for
youngsters but also for the general public. Islam Explained is also an appeal for
peace, tolerance, and mutual understanding in these deeply troubled times.
Regarding the conditions of immigrants, Ben Jelloun stated in an inter-
view that what pose problems for Europeans today are not immigrants but
their children, who are European citizens.3 To the question of how he saw the
situation of Moroccan immigrants today, he replied: “As a writer, as a testa-
ment to the modern times, it was for me difficult to get rid of the phenom-
enon of migration. I discovered this world earlier, that is, at the beginning of
the seventies. When I was a student in France, I used to go to Gennevilliers to
give literacy lessons for the benefit of migrant workers. So, I got to know the
facts known only to few people, not voluntarily but because migration at the
time was only a topic for the media. I have found, as a novelist, a lot of mate-
rial about migration for my novels and theatrical texts. Today, things have
changed so much: immigrants no longer constitute a problem for Europeans,
but their children who have become Europeans do. The whole issue lies in
knowing how to deal with them, for this young generation was not included
in the accounts of politicians. The fact that they are young Europeans means
that they have a dual culture. But, they need to be taken into account, and we
must stop putting them in one basket with their parents.”
In total, Ben Jelloun wrote dozens of novels and essays, most of which
have been translated into over 40 languages. In 2008, he was elected mem-
ber of the Goncourt Academy and made an officer of the French Légion
d’Honneur, the order established by Napoleon Bonaparte, which is the
highest decoration in France.
A new generation of young Euro-Moroccan writers have also become so
well-known and successful in Europe that they have won several prestigious
prizes. We will discuss some of them below, namely: Fouad Laroui, Issa Ait
Belize, Maati Kabbal, and Abdelkader Benali.
Fouad Laroui
Fouad Laroui is one of the best Moroccan-Dutch writers who publishes in
both French and Dutch. In 2013, he was awarded the vastly exalted Prix
Goncourt de la nouvelle, one of France’s top literary prizes, for his short
160 ● Muslim Moroccan Migrants in Europe
There are many reasons to love Fouad Laroui’s stories, for they can be read
at many different levels and each reader can draw something different from
them. He has an ardent following among Moroccans and “maghrebophiles”
worldwide, and his books are often snatched up almost as soon as they appear
on shelves.4
Let’s say that being a foreigner is another handicap that forces you to be better.
As Nietzsche said, “Anything that does not kill me makes me stronger” . . .
More seriously, there is also an undeniable fact that Europe offers more chances
and opportunities, possibilities to develop or improve than the rest of the
world. And then, the social system is very generous so you can get up after a
fall, you can take its course even if you get lost on the wrong track for a while.
Finally, immigration gives you a more varied world, as it forces you to look
with new eyes at your conduct, your beliefs, your habits, and this can be very
beneficial. A total questioning is sometimes the best way to reinvent oneself
and move forward in life.
Again, it depends on what you mean by success. The fact is that when I had
decided to go and settle abroad, to try my luck there, I had already “succeeded”
in some way since I was a professional engineer at OCP and I was promised a
great career. But it was not the OCP today and it was not Morocco today . . .
I would probably have succeeded but there were years of personal frustration
with the feeling of living in a cultural desert, with a sword of Damocles over the
head: the arbitrary decisions taken over oneself. That’s a lot . . . It can tarnish
the shine of what could have been considered a success.
Then, I asked him what the impact of his success on Morocco and
Moroccans was. He answered:
I do not know . . . You’d have to ask those who know me. Having said that,
I often receive letters from young Moroccans who claim that they are inspired
by my journey or recognize themselves in some characters of my novels, for
example, in the narrator of Beware Paratroopers. What I say in a few words is:
be yourself. And then, I repeat what I stated above: invest in yourself in terms
of (true) knowledge and technicality.
Frankly, they are too varied to provide a single answer. To begin with, we
should not idealize: some contribute nothing, judging by the sterile debates
on some sites, ad hominem attacks and totally demagogic proposals. As for
those, often the second generation, who speak of Morocco without knowing
anything about it, without taking the trouble to delve into its history, without
the slightest notion of sociology, political science, and anthropology, it is better
Success Stories ● 163
for them to begin to read and be silent in the meantime. Fortunately, there are
those who bring something valuable: a democratic culture, an ethical debate
that we are sometimes lacking. And then, and this is most important, there
are those that demonstrate the freedom of conscience, who really think for
themselves instead of rehashing old dogmas, who accept and even defend a
world where everyone thinks truly plural and practice what they want. Those
are unfortunately a minority.
My last question to him went like this: “Why is it that the European media
do not focus on Moroccan immigrants who have succeeded?” He replied:
This is the law of nature. We talk about the train that arrives late and not about
the one which has arrived on time. In the Netherlands, for example, newspa-
pers report about negative things. But, this is not always the case, fortunately.
The mayor of Rotterdam, Ahmed Aboutaleb, is a celebrity here7. I think he
is one of the most popular personalities in the country. The media have also
contributed to his fame. But his success is largely due to his work . . . which
takes us back to your second question!
I do not like to use the word “success”, mainly because of its subjectivity. Has
Christ (controversy aside), for example, succeeded by ending his life on the
cross at the age of thirty odd years? According to today’s standards, one would
not hesitate to say no: it is a failure, and an idiocy! By contrast, I can speak of
the desire I have always had to talk about my cultural roots, fabulous history,
and civilization that is more than a millennium old to dispel some misconcep-
tions that ran and still run in the West; false received ideas, half-truths have
been circulating and still circulate about the civilization that I was born in. As
for the secret of my success, if secret there is, it is my constant yearning for the
truth and its universal relativity that I love above all.
Success Stories ● 165
would have said Gavroche. But, I personally do not know why; I leave that to
the sociologists and other analysts of the literary phenomenon of the Moroc-
can diaspora. I can only cry out for translators and publishers of my country
who let die promising literary magazines, unite, wake up as the sun has risen
for ages! As to our influence on Western Europe, by contrast, it is clear. We
participate individually and collectively in the development of a literature able
to respond to multiculturalism which is increasingly criticized in these times
of crisis but which is able to participate in the making of a culture of peace
throughout the world, in the future.
Maati Kabbal
Maati Kabbal was born in Khouribga, Morocco. He is a Franco-Moroccan
writer, essayist, and specialist in Moroccan literature. He is frequently invited
to talk shows on Radio “Médi 1” and contributes to French and Moroccan
television programs and newspapers like Libération, Le Monde Diplomatique,
and the Magazine Littéraire. He has been responsible for the cultural activities
at the Arab World Institute in France since 1997.
He writes with a good sense of humor and emotion about his hometown,
Khouribga. In his novel, Je t’ai à l’oeil, he describes the Moroccan society and
people with a lot of criticism and affection. He depicts people’s everyday life
and socioeconomic challenges.13
In 2007, Kabbal published a collection of short stories titled Maroc, éclats
instantanés, in which he recounts rural characters torn between the deep
“bled” (countryside), the phosphate mines, and France, where the characters
came to live but remain without roots and ultimately without branches, as in
the case of Hoummad Baghli in the novella Farewell Ravel.14
In his novel, One Way to Bouya Omar, the author writes about his own
experience as a migrant torn between two identities and two cultures. It
describes the descent of the main character into the darkness of insanity,
while in search of her mother. By taking snapshots, the author describes
how madness is ready to “seize” the whole world. As Fouad Laroui states in
the preface, Kabbal knows where he comes from, where he is, but wonders
whether this displacement was really necessary. He personifies the Maghrebi
migrant who often suffers from nostalgia and identity crisis.15
Concerning his experience of migration and his background, he stated:
I do not know if I have succeeded, but I gained visibility in the media and
culture, working hard at Courrier International, Liberation, Politis, Al Hayat,
the European University Research and finally at the Institut du Monde Arabe.
In the past, intellectuals and writers, were more generous and attentive to the
demand of people of the global South. There emerged a humanism that is
lacking today to the entire West. But the only secret is serious and hard work.
A supply of skills and expertise. Rationality that must be the basis of everyday
life. They are mediators between the two sides of the Mediterranean.
The European media do not focus on the Moroccans who are successful
because:
The media are obsessed with the bling-bling: it is Debbouze and company who
enjoy preferential treatment, whereas engineers, computer scientists, scientists,
168 ● Muslim Moroccan Migrants in Europe
who succeed and advance society, are reduced. These are potential victims of a
narrow Eurocentrism.
Abdelkader Benali
Abdelkader Benali was born in1975 in Ighazzazen, Morocco, but went with
his father to the Netherlands when Benali was just four years old. He is
now a prominent Moroccan-Dutch writer and journalist, described by the
Dutch media as one of the Netherlands’ leading writers. He wrote his first
novel, Bruloft aan zee (Wedding by the sea), when he was only 21. The novel
won the Geertjan Lubberhuizen-prize for Best First Novel and was trans-
lated into several languages. He received the Libris Prize for his second novel
Langverwachte (The long-awaited), published in 2002. Benali also writes
plays, reviews, and articles. As a Dutch-Moroccan writer, he is frequently
labeled as a multicultural author though he would rather prefer the public
to focus on his writings rather than being interested in his background and
assume that he is a voice for the Moroccan immigrants. He told me:
In 2010, he was awarded the E. Prize of Perronprijs for his book From stem
mijn moeder van (The voice of my mother), qualified as “literature without
borders” by the jury. Organized annually by the city of Tilburg, the E. Prize
of Perronprijs distinguishes authors and artists who bring a plus to the muti-
cultural Dutch life.
I interviewed him in 2013 about the role of migration in his work and life.
Here is what he said:
history of migration into Europe. And I see my history very much in connec-
tion with universal histories of displacement, exodus, shatat, hijra (diaspora),
and persecution. A central theme in my work is how people adjust to new,
sometimes surrealistic, situations. Not out of need, but necessity. Here my
inspirations are the stories of Odysseus, the wandering man in Kafka’s stories
and Sindbad the Sailor. Migration ultimately is an absurd act, and one of the
best worked out conclusions of this standpoint can be seen in the cinematic
work of the Ghanese-British filmmaker John Akomfrah.
Hard work and raising to the occasion. But I have to say that society has offered
me many, many possibilities to put my individual talent into a myriad forms of
expression. I am fortunate to be living in a society that values the individualis-
tic expression for itself, and not for a political, nationalistic or ethnic agenda.
Though this creates tension between what is an artist and why is one an artist,
it still provides the space that creates an immense liberty.
I asked him if he could have been successful had he stayed in Morocco, and
he replied: “No, never that successful.” When I asked, “What is the impact of
your success on Morocco and the Moroccans?” he replied:
When you look at sports, immense. When you look at various fields of art, very
strong and stimulating. It’s very exciting to see how this group is developing.
170 ● Muslim Moroccan Migrants in Europe
Regarding why the European media do not highlight the successful Moroccan-
Europeans, his answer was:
Many Moroccans in Europe have also excelled in other fields like sport, art,
theatre, and cinema. We shall then focus in the following sub-section on one
of the most prolific and successful artists in France: Jamel Debbouze.
Jamel Debbouze
Jamel Debbouze is an extraordinarily popular Franco-Moroccan actor, come-
dian, and producer. He is one of the most well-known and heavily mediatized
Francophone comedians in modern times. He was born in1975 in Paris. His
family, originally from Taza, Morocco, had settled in Trappes, in the Paris
area, where Debbouze spent the rest of his childhood.
At the age of 15, he was struck by a passing train travelling at 150 km/h at
the Trappes station. He lost the use of his right arm, while another young man,
Jean-Paul Admette, the son of the singer Michel Admette from Reunion, died.
Debbouze was sued by the victim’s family for manslaughter but the case was
dismissed by lack of proof, as most of the witnesses withdrew their accusations.
He took part in the French championship of theatre improvisation in 1991
and toured Quebec and Morocco. In 1992, he played his first role in a film
by Nabil Ayouch titled Les Pierres Bleues du Désert. After this film, Debbouze
wanted to work as an actor and create his own show. This happened in 1995
with the show C’est Tout Neuf, which was a success. He ran several shows on
French Radio Nova and on French television channels, which achieved him
national fame.
In March 1999, Debbouze started his new show Jamel en Scène, in which
he talked about his beginnings, childhood, and show business. At the end
of his 2000 tour through France, he returned to Paris with his show at the
Olympia for three weeks. He received his first huge role in a feature comic
film called Le Ciel les oiseaux et ta . . . mère! (Boys on the beach), which was
successful, with more than 1 million tickets sold. Over the next two years he
continued his stage shows, before returning to film with the highly successful
Le fabuleux destin d’Amélie Poulain. He was nominated for the César Award
for Best Supporting Actor in 2002.
Success Stories ● 171
For three years in a row, Debbouze’s new show, 100% Debbouze, played in
the top Parisian theaters—the Casino de Paris, the Bataclan, the Zenith, and
the Olympia. He then toured France, Morocco, Tunisia, Switzerland, and
Belgium. The DVD of the show went on sale in 2004 and sold more than a
million copies.
In 2006, he acted in the historical movie Indigènes (he also co-produced),
which paid tribute to the North African soldiers who fought for France dur-
ing World War II. For this movie, he received the prize for best male actor at
the 59th Cannes Film Festival. Two years later, Debbouze opened a comedy
club in Paris, aimed at launching newcomers on the stand-up scene. He was
the chairman of the 2013 César Awards.
Analysts state that Jamel Debbouze is confined to the culture of the Paris
suburbs (banlieues), and that most of his comedy is drawn from his personal
life, his family’s experience, and the problems of the banlieues (Mogniss 2003).
In fact, he symbolizes Arab-Muslim oppressed youth in France. But he
responds that his characters have nothing to do with reality. In an interview
with the French magazine Télérama on April 7,1999, he confides that his
characters are one hundred percent “constructed.” He states that he under-
stands the problems and frustrations of the migrant youth, especially when
their parents earn little money or just enough to pay the electricity and rent
bills. This would indicate that he does get his characters from migrant youth
experience.
He financially supports Trappes’ football club, as well as schools, charities,
and deprived groups of the population. He created the Marrakesh interna-
tional film festival in 2010, to which prestigious actors and comedians are
invited. He is well respected and loved in Morocco and has developed friend-
ships with the royal family (Le Figaro of Feb. 4, 2003).
Debbouze is a good example of the cultural integration of young educated
Moroccans in France who cast aside their own communautarism and the
colonial legacy. He admits that it is very hard to integrate in France. In his
interview with Le Figaro of Feb. 4, 2003, he states “one does not realize how
difficult it is to integrate. Even the bowl vendors are racists.”17
Today, Debbouze is recognized in France and beyond as a Franco-Moroccan
actor and comedian, and is celebrated as one of the top 50 great French per-
sonalities of all time, along with Christian Clavier, Gérard Depardieu, and
Zinedine Zidane.18 He has many fans, not only among Moroccan youth, but
also among older generations and French nationals, who often ask him for
an autograph.
In addition to artists, intellectuals, and writers, many Moroccans in
Europe have succeeded and risen to stardom in politics and civil society, as
we shall see below.
172 ● Muslim Moroccan Migrants in Europe
Najat Vallaud-Belkacem
Second in a family of seven children, Najat Vallaud-Belkacem was born in
1977 near Nador, in the Rif, northern Morocco. In 1982, she traveled with
her mother and older sister to Amiens, where they joined her father, a con-
struction worker who had migrated previously, and it was there that she spent
her childhood.
As a lawyer and active member of the Socialist Party, she has led actions to
strengthen local democracy, fight against discrimination, and promote citi-
zens’ rights and access to employment and housing. When she was appointed
to President François Hollande’s cabinet in 2012, as Minister of Women’s
Rights and spokesperson for the government, she was the youngest minis-
ter in the government. She was the spokesperson for Ségolène Royal dur-
ing the 2007 presidential elections and for François Hollande in 2011 for
his presidential campaign.19 In addition to her role as spokesperson for the
presidential candidate, she ran in the 2012 parliamentary elections and won a
seat in the fourth district of the Rhone, and has since been elected its general
councilor.
Under her leadership, the Ministry of Women’s Rights has become a
vibrant and active ministry for the first time. Vallaud-Belkacem is determined
to initiate a “third generation of women’s rights,” after the first generation of
political rights and the second generation of economic equality. She is par-
ticularly engaged in achieving parity in many sectors and eradicating gender-
stereotyping in school textbooks and curricula.
Vallaud-Belkacem emphasizes her concept of “visible plurality” in French
society, because for her, diversity and equality are not incompatible and offer
a third way to “resolve difficulties related to integration.”20 She insists on an
equality of opportunity that is sorely lacking in French society. This lack of
opportunity has led to the impoverishment of the population, further exacer-
bated by the economic crisis.
Very involved in issues of her generation, she believes in the digital revolu-
tion, free Internet, and social media networks. She took a stand against the
Hadopi law that sought to limit the freedom of Internet surfers.
Success Stories ● 173
In her 2012 book Raison d’Etre, she emphasizes the values of dialogue and
diversity that are very dear to her. She argues that progress is still possible
through political action and only through it. It is this conviction that she
wishes to champion in her book, where she provides good reasons of hope for
the future and uses harsh words to criticize supporters of pessimism, defeat,
and renunciation in the face of market forces. She brings a new tone to poli-
tics, that of a young woman who embodies the new generation of French
socialists. For many observers, Najat Vallaud-Belkacem, one of two Franco-
Moroccans in government, has replaced the outstanding French female poli-
tician of Moroccan origin, Rachida Dati, who will be considered below:
Rachida Dati
Rachida Dati is an exceptional French politician and member of the European
Parliament, representing Île-de-France. Before her election, she held the cabi-
net post of keeper of the seals, minister of justice, during Nicolas Sarkozy’s
presidency.
She was born in1965 in Saint-Rémy, Saône-et-Loire, to a Moroccan
father, a bricklayer, and an Algerian mother. She graduated from the École
Nationale de la Magistrature and became a prominent judge in Paris and a
member of the Union for Popular Movement party (UMP). In 2007, she was
named spokesperson for Nicolas Sarkozy’s presidential campaign. Thanks to
her hard work, she rose from poverty to sublime power against all the odds
of French discrimination.
She was appointed minister of justice under President Sarkozy’s govern-
ment and was the first Muslim woman to hold a major government post.
According to Sarkozy, her appointment was meant to send a message “to all
the children of France that with merit and effort, everything becomes pos-
sible.” Her position in the French cabinet was certainly a memorable period
in the political life of France, which is still shaken by racial discrimination.21
Her first reforms were received coldly by professionals, with public dem-
onstrations. She was attacked by feminists after giving birth to her daughter,
because she did not take maternity leave. She took only five days’ rest, and she
replied to the critics that she was free to go back to work. “The most impor-
tant right for women is freedom,” she said.22
In 2009, she was elected member of the European Parliament. Asked if
she would campaign for the top job, the 47-year-old single mother replied:
“Why not, if I can do something for my country?”23
Like France, the Netherlands showcases many Moroccan success stories
at the political level. The personality that comes to mind first is Ahmed
Aboutaleb, mayor of Rotterdam since 2009. He has had brilliant political
174 ● Muslim Moroccan Migrants in Europe
career in the Labor party, and between 2007 and 2008 he was secretary of
state for employment and training, as we shall see below.
Ahmed Aboutaleb
Ahmed Aboutaleb was born in 1961 in Beni Sidel, a small village in northern
Morocco, and was 15 when he arrived in the Netherlands. He graduated
from the Hogere Technische School, where he studied telecommunications.
His political career began in 2004, when he became alderman (council mem-
ber next in status to mayor) in the city of Amsterdam, in charge of work and
income, education, youth, diversity and urban policy.
He is the first Muslim mayor of Rotterdam, Europe’s largest port and one
of the busiest in the world. Ahmed Aboutaleb embodies the incongruity of
many successful Moroccan immigrants in a country where anti-Islam feelings
have become a hot political debate.
During my stay in the Netherlands in June 2012, I had the opportunity to
ask him why and how he achieved this powerful position, while the majority
of immigrants suffered from marginalization and discrimination. His answer
was:
I have struggled extremely hard for many years There is a large Muslim and
non-Muslim population which welcomes a Muslim-born and elected mayor
of Rotterdam . . . I must work hard and succeed; however, if I don’t, it will be
a big disappointment for this population, and it will be harder for people to
participate in public life.
Aboutaleb compares his battle to that of Dutch women in the 1960s. “Fifty
years ago there was only one female university professor in the Netherlands,
today there are so many,” he added. I asked him about his proudest moment,
and he answered:
It was during one of the elections in my pre-mayor era, I received the highest
number of votes, 50,000, and amongst those who voted for me were Jewish
people, Muslims, and Christians.
His aim is to develop his city, encourage business with the rest of the
world, and focus on human development. Aboutaleb states that economic
development and “physical appearance of success, in reference to bridges,
dams and infrastructure, are important but insufficient, for investing in
people is of paramount importance.”24 He stated in a December 16, 2011,
interview for Gulf News25:
Success Stories ● 175
Fatiha Saidi
Fatiha Saidi has been a member of the senate in Belgium (Socialist party)
and member of the Parliament Assembly of the Council of Europe since
2004. She was born in 1961 to a family of Moroccan origin and has lived in
Belgium since she was five years old. She struggles for the respect of human
rights, doing volunteer work. She is best known for the founding of Radio El
Wafa, a free community radio station, in 1986. As a psychologist, she oper-
ates in the field of youth welfare, helping troubled youth and their families
(because of abuse, school dropout, drugs, delinquency, etc.). Then, she moved
to journalism, and continued struggling for the promotion of migrants rights
and equal opportunities.
To better defend the values of justice, equity, and respect for human rights
and women, Fatiha Saidi entered politics and in 1999 became a member of
Parliament (MP). Along with her parliamentary mandate, Fatiha Saidi has
been alderwoman at Evere since 2007, in charge of urban planning, the envi-
ronment, sustainable development, solidarity among peoples, and equality
of opportunity.
Her work focuses on access to the fundamental rights of health, housing,
and employment; and equal opportunities for all citizens, regardless of their
national origin, gender, religious or philosophical beliefs, or sexual orien-
tation. To achieve this, her favorite method is to listen to citizens, to hear
and relay their needs, suggestions, and concerns. “Attention is crucial, for
it feeds my political action and it helps me take concrete action, tailored to
individual needs,” she stated in an email conversation. This essential bond
allows her to take the pulse of the living conditions of people, especially the
most vulnerable groups (unemployed, single parents, people of foreign ori-
gin, undocumented migrants, disabled persons, etc.) and gives her a more
informed perspective, leading to helpful resources or solutions.
Being an MP never meant she should live in an ivory tower, and she con-
tinues to be active in associations that have invited her to participate. She
Success Stories ● 177
facilitates informal gatherings for them, and sometimes more formal work-
shops or conferences aimed at sharing realities, tools, and strategies.
Nadia Sminate
Nadia Sminate was born in Bonheiden (central Belgium), to a Moroccan
father and a Belgian mother. She earned a degree in Roman philology from
the Flemish University of Brussels (VUB) and taught languages to adults
in the teaching center Lethas de Ganshoren, before she became MP, in the
House of Representatives of Belgium in 2010.
As a candidate of the independentist New Flemish Alliance Party (N-VA),
Nadia Sminate was elected mayor of the town of Londerzeel in 2012 at the
age of 31, during the Belgian municipal elections. As member of the New
Flemish Alliance, the separatist party in the Flemish region, Nadia Sminate
will be the first mayor of Moroccan origin in Belgium. At her side, 129 other
Belgians from Morocco were elected on the same day. This figure symbolizes
the successful integration of these immigrants in the host society.
Ninety-five Moroccans were elected in the capital, Brussels. Overall, it is in
French-speaking Wallonia that Moroccans are most successful. In the Flanders
regions, which are Dutch- or German-speaking, there is a general reluctance
to elect immigrants or their descendants to decision-making positions.
This unfavorable attitude did not prevent Moroccans from developing
brilliant political careers. The leader of the separatist Flemish party said he
was proud to present the first mayor of Moroccan origin, who has a high
sense of independence. The independentist Flemish party is against anti-
immigrant policies, unlike the extreme right. The appointment of Nadia
Sminate has created surprise, according to the newspaper La Libre Belgique,
since the nationalist party N-VA is not known for its soft attitude toward
foreigners and immigrants.30
The Belgian information site “7 sur 7” of the party claims that it is open
to debate about immigrants political participation. However, the party holds
ambivalent positions toward immigration, as it wavers between the rein-
forcing of border controls and denouncing the reintroduction of border
controls.31
Fadila Laânan
In Wallonia, the example that comes to mind is Fadila Laânan, currently
the minister of culture, audiovisual, health, and equal opportunities of the
Federation of Wallonia-Brussels. She held several other prestigious positions
as member of the Socialist Party.
178 ● Muslim Moroccan Migrants in Europe
Conclusion
Across Europe, Moroccan immigrants have contributed to various fields,
which has helped advance their host countries and their own society. At home
and in Europe, they have developed strategies for resisting social injustice,
Success Stories ● 179
I
n Europe, Muslim Moroccan migration is often wrongly associated
with undocumented migration, integration issues, violence, terrorism,
theft, drugs, delinquency, prostitution, etc. It is also widely thought that
migrants take advantage of host countries and take more than they give. This
kind of discourse is dangerous because it fosters xenophobia, Islamophobia,
and prejudice against migrants.
The book has shown that Moroccan migrants function as facilitators of
exchange at the economic, socio-cultural, and political levels. Economically,
migrants contribute to development of trade, partnerships, and financial
exchanges. Socially, they are involved in networks and other links that main-
tain their attachment to their home countries. Culturally, migrants are good
mediators between Europe and the Muslim world, and can play a prominent
role in cultural exchanges and intercultural dialogue.
Moroccan migrants in Europe have changed over the last decades both
qualitatively and quantitatively. They have become diverse, multicultural,
and multilingual. They are diverse at the levels of gender, age, socio-cultural
background, status, integration, education, employment, etc. Their encoun-
ter with democratic life in Europe has made them more disciplined, law-
abiding, and keener on progress and modernity in their country of origin.
This book has highlighted the considerable contributions of Moroccan
immigrants to development and socio-cultural change in Europe. They
actively participate in economic growth by building infrastructures, indus-
tries, and manufactures; increasing production in all domains; creating
businesses and new jobs; and filling those occupations European people are
reluctant to take. Moroccan immigrants also contribute substantially to the
economic and social development of their home country through remittances
and investments.
The remittances sent back to Morocco are substantial, as they constitute
the second source of foreign currency for the country after tourism, and are
an important vector of development. They support thousands of families and
182 ● Muslim Moroccan Migrants in Europe
Major Findings
One of the central findings of this study is the plurality and heterogeneity of
the Moroccan community. Regardless of their age, education, gender, class,
and status, all Moroccan migrants and their descendants are undergoing
change and moving toward greater diversity, giving rise to new family models,
including bachelorhood, cohabitation, divorced, nuclear, and large families.
The reasons for immigration, which were originally economic or for family
reunification, are also evolving, with new strategies being adopted, especially
in relation to marriage. For example, the majority are married to Moroccans:
86.4 percent of Belgian-Moroccans have spouses of Moroccan origin, com-
pared with only 8.5 percent who are married to Belgians. Even as a third of
the Belgian-Moroccans interviewed own their own homes in Belgium, nearly
two thirds of them have property in Morocco (Saaf et al. 2009). These are just
a few factors that illustrate the Moroccan community’s attachment to both
Morocco and the host country.
The book also reveals the insecure socioeconomic situation of many
Moroccans. Large cross-country and regional differences were found in the
scale of poverty, showing the Belgian-Moroccans in Wallonia as the worst off
among the diaspora. Women and young people remain marginalized in the
labor market because not only of segregation but also lack of training and
patriarchal restrictions on women to stay home.
Another interesting finding of the study is that Moroccans in Europe felt
usually more integrated in Francophone countries like France and Belgium than
in other European countries like Spain, Germany, or England, for linguistic,
cultural, and historical reasons (see introduction). Hence, their artistic and cul-
tural production is visibly richer in the Francophone countries (see chapter 10).
Migrants’ attitudes to the home country were complex. The majority of
respondents felt rather optimistic about Morocco, although they mentioned
problems such as poverty, corruption, issues of freedom, and human rights.
With regard to their host country, despite advantages like education, health-
care, and social security, the majority were less optimistic, especially because
of problems like Islamophobia, racism, and unemployment.
Conclusion ● 183
contribute to a new type of feminism whose impact shapes the second gen-
eration of immigrants that participate in the construction of a contemporary
Europe with multiple identities. The book claims that women’s contributions
foster a pledge to the construction of an integrated plural European society.
Second- and third-generation girls and women do slightly better than
their male counterparts in education and employment, despite the conserva-
tive family culture restricting women’s ambitions more than men’s. Arranged
marriages are decreasing, as more and more Moroccan women choose to
marry someone they love from their ethnic group, country of origin, or
another community.
Stigma and discrimination have at times forced Moroccan women to work
in the informal or unregulated sector, which exposes them to low pay and lack
of benefits and protection. Host countries cannot continue to ignore the plight
of these migrant women while they are increasingly needed in the job mar-
ket, where their work is recognized and appreciated. In many cases, Moroccan
women are respected for their positive thinking, honesty, and hard work.
Future Perspectives
There is a consensus among researchers that Moroccan migration will con-
tinue to play an important role, and there will not be a decrease in numbers
in the near future (Fargues 2008; de Haas 2007). The Moroccan community
Conclusion ● 187
Introduction
1. For example, five bodies were found and about 15 more people were missing
after a boat carrying illegal immigrants sank in August 2006 off the Italian island
of Lampedusa, The New York Times reported on August 20, 2006. On Octo-
ber 3, 2013, at least 82 African people (including several children and a preg-
nant woman) were killed after a boat carrying some 500 illegal migrants caught
fire and capsized near Lampedusa island. Others die by the dozens each year
in the Strait of Gibraltar, or Tarifa, Spain. For more on this sad story see this
link: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/20/world/europe/20iht-italy.2543408.
html?_r=0 (accessed on August 6, 2013). And for more on the circumstances
of this tragedy, see this electronic newspaper: http://www.nationalturk.com/en/
italy-illegal-immigration82-migrant-dead-boats-sinks-near-lampedusa-breaking-
news-43466 (accessed on Jan. 20, 2014).
2. The 5+5 Dialogue, convened for the first time in Rome on December 10, 1990,
was one of the first meetings on dialogue in the region. The forum’s purpose was
to strengthen political dialogue and socioeconomic and cultural ties between all
countries of the Mediterranean.
3. Researchers use this method if the sample for the study is very rare or is limited to
a very small subgroup of the population. This type of sampling technique works
like chain referral. After observing the initial subject, the researcher asks for assis-
tance from the subject to help identify people with a similar trait of interest.
Chapter 1
1. For more details, see Bidwell (1973) and de Haas, H. (2005).
2. France created l’Office National d’Immigration Français, which operated in
Casablanca until 1974. Belgium had representatives of la Fédération des Char-
bonnages Belges, and the Netherlands had offices of recruitment of immigrants
until 1973.
3. See de Haas (2009). Morocco. Focus Migration. Country Profile No. 16. See
http://focus-migration.hwwi.de/uploads/tx_wilpubdb/CP_16_Morocco.pdf
(accessed on Oct. 12, 2012).
4. See note 3.
190 ● Notes
Chapter 2
1. See the Arabic link that published the figures: http://hespress.com/marocains-
du-monde/86390.html (accessed on Aug. 10, 2013). See also the website of the
Ministry in Charge of Moroccans Living Abroad: http://www.marocainsdumonde.
gov.ma/le-minist%C3%A8re/mre-en-chiffres.aspx (accessed on May 2, 2014).
2. See the French newspaper Le Figaro of Oct. 10, 2012.
3. See note 2.
4. See the website of the Ministry in Charge of Moroccans Living Abroad: http://
www.marocainsdumonde.gov.ma/le-minist%C3%A8re/mre-en-chiffres.aspx
(accessed on May 2, 2014).
5. The same source notes that there are 178,914 Moroccans in North America, and
281,772 in the Arab countries.
6. See official website of the Ministry in Charge of Moroccans Living Abroad:
http://www.marocainsdumonde.gov.ma/ministère-des-mre/mre-en-chiffres.aspx
(accessed on Oct. 11 2012).
7. If one counts illegal immigrants, approximately 4 million Moroccans live abroad
today. This is according to The Christian Science Monitor of Sept. 29, 2005.
http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0929/p07s01-woeu.html (accessed on Oct.
11, 2012).
8. See this link: http://focusmigration.hwwi.de/Morocco.5987.0.html?&L=1
(accessed on Oct. 11, 2012).
9. The Ministry in Charge of Moroccans Living Abroad expressed its indignation
about this decision. Read more at this link: http://www.aujourdhui.ma/maroc-
actualite/societe/reduction-des-allocations-familiales-maazouz-reagit-a-la-deci-
sion-des-autorites-neerlandaises-100468.html (accessed on Mar. 9, 2013).
10. See this link: http://www.aujourdhui.ma/une/special-mre-2013/communaute-
marocaine-a-l-etranger-les-mre-rattrapes-par-la-crise-96937#.U0xzoVU0G1s
(accessed on Dec. 23, 2012).
11. For more information, see the electronic Dutch newspaper nrc.nl of Sept. 27,
2009: http://vorige.nrc.nl/international/article2305201.ece/Dutch-Moroccans_
least_happy_in_Europe (accessed on Oct. 22, 2012).
12. ibid.
13. A separate study makes a direct link between criminality in the Netherlands
and Muslim immigration. Entitled “Criminality, Migration and Ethnicity,” it
was published in June 2010 by the Amsterdam-based Journal of Criminology.
For more on this point, see this link: http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/2624/
moroccan-crime-netherlands (accessed on Oct. 25, 2012).
14. More than 130 African migrants died on October 2, 2013, after the boat carrying
them to Europe sank off the southern Italian island of Lampedusa. For more, see
the BBC site: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-24380247 (accessed on
Oct. 6, 2013).
15. Derose, K. P., Escarce, J. J., and Lurie, N. (2007). “Immigrants and Health Care:
Sources of Vulnerability.” In Health Affairs: http://content.healthaffairs.org/con-
tent/26/5/1258.full (accessed on Oct. 21, 2012).
192 ● Notes
16. The available statistics in Spain concern mainly legal migrants and do not take
into account undocumented ones.
17. For more details about this sad story, see this link: http://www.eurofound.europa.
eu/eiro/2000/04/feature/es0004184f.htm (accessed on May 2, 2014).
18. This survey was carried out by Tomas Calvo Buzas, and published by the newspa-
per El Pais on Nov. 7, 2001.
19. See this relevant information: http://usefoundation.org/view/989 (accessed on
Apr. 14, 2014).
20. For more information, read how Spanish authorities compel Moroccans to vol-
untarily return home: http://eliesmith.blogspot.com/2008/08/spain-wants-to-
compel-moroccan.html (accessed on Apr. 14, 2014).
21. On October 18, 2012, the second Moroccan TV channel, 2M, broadcast a docu-
mentary on the situation of Moroccan migrants in Spain, where it was shown that
most Moroccans had lost their jobs and were running the risk of being deported.
22. See this link: http://rsc.eui.eu/RDP/research-projects/mirem/ (accessed on May
3, 2014).
23. See note 22.
Chapter 3
1. See Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu (2011). http://www.project-syndicate.org/commen-
tary/islam-and-in-the-west (accessed on Oct. 22, 2013).
2. Here is the report in question: http://assembly.coe.int/ASP/Doc/Xref
ViewHTML.asp?FileID=12479&Language=en (accessed on Oct. 23, 2014).
3. Read this article: http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/islam-and-in-
the-west (accessed on Oct. 23, 2013).
4. See Dounia Bouzar’s interview published in the French newspaper L’Humanité
of Jan. 24, 2014: http://www.humanite.fr/societe/dounia-bouzar-combattre-les-
derives-sectaires-c-es-557875 (accessed on Mar. 21, 2014).
5. There are many hate websites that even campaign for stopping “Muslim immigra-
tion.” See http://www.barenakedislam.com/2013/04/22/help-stoplimit-muslim-
immigration-into-your-country/ (accessed on Oct. 22, 2013).
6. See www.brusselsjournal.com/node/616 (accessed on Oct. 22. 2013).
7. See The Copenhagen Post, Dec. 23, 2005. www.jp.dk/uknews/article190147.ece
(accessed on Oct. 22. 2013).
8. See article “Demonstrating for Dialogue”, The Copenhagen Post, Feb. 5, 2006.
www.jp.dk/uknews/article176947.ece (accessed on Oct. 22. 2013).
9. Christian Democratic Union (CDU) is the second-largest political party in Ger-
many by total membership.
10. Bashir Ebrahim-Khan (2006). “Is Islamophobia in Europe leading to another
holocaust?” The Muslim News, Jan. 27, 2006. See http://www.muslimnews.
co.uk/paper/index.php?article=2274. (accessed on Oct. 22, 2013). Bashir
Ebrahim-Khan is the former head of community relations at the London Cen-
tral Mosque, Regent Park and former deputy director of the Muslim Cultural
Heritage Center.
Notes ● 193
Chapter 4
1. Here is the full speech of President Jacques Chirac on Dec. 17, 2003: http://
www.lemonde.fr/societe/article_interactif/2007/05/15/les-discours-de-jacques-
chirac_910136_3224_8.html (accessed on Apr. 18, 2014).
2. Halal meat is killed by hand and blessed by a Muslim slaughterman.
3. See this interview reproduced in The Huffington Post of Aug. 29, 2010: http://
archives-lepost.huffingtonpost.fr/article/2010/08/29/2198991_elisabeth-bad-
inter-en-2003-sur-le-voile-islamique-si-on-accepte-cette-symbolique-fini-
l-egalite-des-sexes.html (accessed on Apr. 17, 2014).
4. Niqab is the term used to refer to the piece of cloth that covers the woman’s face,
except the eyes, whereas burqa is a garment that covers women’s bodies from head
to toe with a tiny aperture for the eyes.
5. See the entire interview in Le Monde of Dec. 19, 2009, published online:
http://www.lemonde.fr/politique/article/2009/12/19/francois-baroin-le-
debat-sur-l-identite-nationale-ne-peut-que-servir-le-fn_1283102_823448.
html#ens_id=1258775
6. See The Guardian of Mar. 30, 2014: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/
mar/30/anne-hidalgo-socialist-first-paris-mayor-front-national (accessed on May
4, 2014).
7. See Edward Cody, Washington Post Foreign Service, Jan. 16, 2010. http://www.
washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/15/AR2010011503775.
html?waporef=obinsite (accessed on Apr. 4, 2014).
8. See Edward Cody, Washington Post Foreign Service, Jan. 16, 2010. http://www.
washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/15/AR2010011503775.
html?waporef=obinsite (accessed on Apr. 4, 2014).
9. See the article here: http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2013/09/11/muslim-
students-banned-wearing-veil-college-protest-_n_3906438.html (accessed on
October 18, 2013).
10. See note 11.
Notes ● 195
Chapter 5
1. Freedman (2000: 15) demonstrates that many North African women in France
feel uprooted, being far away from their extended families back home, and lack
mastery of French.
2. Interview with Mahmood Jamal, We are Here Project: http://www.weareherepro-
ject.co.uk/transcripts/ms-souad-talsi.pdf (accessed on Aug. 18, 2013).
3. See ISTAT, 2012. http://www.istat.it/en/archive/110551 (accessed on Aug. 12, 2014).
4. See Khachani, M. (2009b): http://cadmus.eui.eu/bitstream/handle/1814/11613/
CARIM_AS&N_2009_26.pdf?sequence=1 accessed on Aug. 18, 2013).
5. For more statistics and figures about employment, see http://www.insee.fr/fr/ffc/
docs_ffc/ref/IMMFRA12_j_Flot4_mar.pdf (accessed on May 5, 2014).
6. In fact, domestic work is the second-most increased industry throughout the
world for migrant women. The need for domestic workers has increased greatly
over the last two decades (Gregson and Lowe 1994). Macklin (1999) and
Hondagneu-Sotelo (1994) both draw attention to the demand for undocu-
mented domestic migrant work in the United States as well.
7. According to the declaration of IOM on Women’s day in Geneva on March 8,
2010, migration labor policies applied by destination countries do not seem to
distinguish between the sexes, they are still characterized by sexism and focused
on skilled jobs, mostly male jobs.
8. The work undertaken by migrant women, especially in the fields of care and domes-
tic work, is of fundamental importance for the economy of the host country. How-
ever, it is often undervalued and poorly integrated in admission policies. See also
note 9.
9. The historical evolution of the migrant domestic workforce in Italy is marked by
restriction and regularization. In 1986, the Italian government stopped the issu-
ing of labor permits for domestic workers, and in turn started a legalization of
undocumented immigrants.
10. The absence of legal migration channels often forces women to seek the services
of traffickers and other intermediaries, which greatly increases the risk of abuse
and violence against them.
11. The number of Moroccans living in the UK amounted to nearly 60,000, includ-
ing 70 percent having the British nationality. Most of them are concentrated in
the London area. Nearly 65 percent of these Moroccans are women. For more on
this, see Cherti (2008) and Alaoui (2008). www.ccme.org.ma/.../Rachid_Alaoui_
Chafai_espa (accessed on Mar 21, 2013).
12. See the entire interview on this link: http://www.kcsc.org.uk/spotlight-on-souad-
talsi (accessed on 16 August 2013).
13. MBE is a Member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire.
196 ● Notes
14. Interview with Ms. Talsi by Mahmood Jamal, We Are Here Project: http://www.
wearehereproject.co.uk/transcripts/ms-souad-talsi.pdf (accessed on Aug. 18,
2013).
15. For further information, see this article by Alaoui (2008): http://www.docstoc.
com/docs/136958365/Economic-Contribution-of-the-Moroccan-Women-Liv
ing--CCME (accessed on Aug. 17, 2013).
16. See this link about UNITAR’s role in Europe : http://www.unitar.org/featured/
unitar-and-barcelona-provide-critical-space-city-leadership-strategize-migration-
policy (accessed on Aug. 8, 2014).
17. Cf. Khachani (2004: 51) and “l’Annuaire de l’Emigration” (1991: 228).
18. See A. Lebon (1983: 55).
19. Fatema Mernissi (1995). “Pour une dynamique de l’entrepreneuriat féminin au
Maroc.” Presentation in a conference in Casablanca on May 14, 1995.
Chapter 6
1. See this article for details: http://etn.sagepub.com/content/7/3/416.full.pdf+html
(accessed on Dec. 3, 2013).
2. See note 1.
3. See details in this article: http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=u3kX
jCnWfRAC&oi=fnd&pg=PA61&dq=Wolff,+R.+2003+moroccan+immigrants+
in+the+netherlands&ots=qgTbBYoK26&sig=G5DCBPCKV4Kb8KeZq-
50lFb8OK4#v=onepage&q&f=false (accessed on Dec. 3, 2013).
4. In Belgium, Migration History and Social Mobility (MHSM) surveys were con-
ducted some years ago among Turkish and Moroccan communities to measure
the extent of their integration.
5. For more, see this article about the case of Spain: http://migrationeducation.org/
48.1.html?&rid=163&cHash=9d6f60e57eb65e106fdd8b0e5ae6d3ee (accessed
on Nov. 6, 2013).
6. For more about the linguistic skills of Moroccans in Belgium, see Saaf et al.
(2009). See also Arango and Pastrana (2011). Overcoming School Failure: Policies
that Work. Madrid: Publication of the Ministry of Education. http://www.oecd.
org/spain/48631820.pdf (accessed on June 12, 2013).
7. The Tifinagh alphabet has been re-shaped and modernized by the Royal Institute
of Amazigh Culture, created by royal decree in 2001.
8. For more information, consult this link: http://www.e-madrassa.ma/ (accessed on
Jan. 21, 2014).
9. See this important article: http://www.oecd.org/spain/48631820.pdf.
10. For example, see this article: http://www.cirdi.org/wp/wp-content/uploads/2011/
01/Raxen-Migranti-minoranze-ed-educazione-2004.pdf (accessed on Dec. 3,
2013).
11. Only 23 percent of immigrant students in the Madrid region reach university
(Aramburu 2005).
Notes ● 197
Chapter 7
1. Van Kessel (2004). See http://www.eclac.org/celade/proyectos/migracion/Van
Kessel.doc.
2. When we speak of globalization, we must not keep in mind only the economic
factor. In addition to economic, financial, and cultural exchanges, free circulation
of people and flow of ideas must also be fostered.
3. See the website of the Migration Observatory at the University of Oxford
of May 18, 2012. http://migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/briefings/characteristics-
and-outcomes-migrants-uk-labour-market (accessed on Oct. 28, 2012).
4. For more information about this campaign, see the article by Ruben Navarrette
in this link: http://www.cnn.com/2013/10/24/opinion/navarrette-anti-immigra-
tion-uk/ (accessed on Dec. 5, 2013).
5. The Conservative Party of Prime Minister David Cameron has decided to reduce
illegal immigration from annual 200,000 to 10,000. For the British, the problem
is Eastern Europeans. See note 6.
6. See debate on this event in The Guardian: http://www.theguardian.com/uk-
news/2013/oct/22/go-home-vans-scrapped-failure (accessed on Dec. 5, 2013).
7. See the report by United Nations Population Division, Replacement Migration:
Is it a Solution to Declining and Ageing Populations?, March 2000, on website:
http://www.u-n.org/esa/population/publications/migration/migration.htm
(accessed Oct. 28, 2012).
8. On January 29, 2004, Secretary-General of the United Nations Kofi Annan,
stated in a formal speech at the European Parliament in Brussels that “immigrants
198 ● Notes
Chapter 8
1. It is, however, well known that there are several practices and forms of Islam in
Europe represented by the various Muslim immigrants from different countries,
according to their sects and rites.
2. Report read by Mohammed Amaziane, Radio Netherlands International, Tues-
day, Sept. 23, 2008.
3. See this link: http://www.rug.nl/news-and-events/news/archief2008/114_008
(accessed on Dec. 11, 2013).
4. See more figures by country in this report: http://www.west-info.eu/moroccans-
are-the-new-eu-citizens/stat-13-177_en/ (accessed on Apr. 24, 2014).
Notes ● 199
5. Ibid.
6. See this link for more on this event: http://fr.lakome.com/index.php/
international/1240-france-la-justice-invente-la-nationalite-arabe-d-un-marocain
(accessed on Aug. 20, 2013).
Chapter 9
1. For more information, see this Eurostat Report: http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/
cache/ITY_OFFPUB/KS-31-10-539/EN/KS-31-10-539-EN.PDF (accessed on
Apr. 21, 2014).
2. I refer the reader to the website of the Council for the Moroccan Community
Abroad for more statistics and figures: http://www.ccme.org.ma/fr/medias-et-
migration/13880 (accessed on Apr. 30, 2014).
3. Every summer, hundreds of thousands of Moroccans return home for vacation
with their families. For instance, in 2004, the port of Tangier received over 2
million Moroccan migrants (El Madmad 2004, p. 110).
4. In France, the Socialist Party has discussed extending the right to vote to immi-
grants since the early 1980s, but it needs a Constitutional change or a referen-
dum. On May 3, 2000, a bill was voted on by the National Assembly, yet it was
blocked by the Senate. In 2012, polls indicated that a majority of the French
public opinion was still opposed to it. For the different policies adopted by the
EU member states, see this article: http://migrationeducation.de/50.1.html?&
rid=128&cHash=8203ee3d83c92126ccf5db4c44550c6d (accessed on Apr. 21,
2014).
5. In 1999, unemployment of workers was 14 percent for the nationals, while it
reached 21 percent for immigrant workers and employees (Khachani 2001).
6. See his biography online: http://homepages.laas.fr/malik/Home/Bio.html
(accessed on Apr. 30, 2014).
7. This brain drain inevitably leads to a widening gap between developed and devel-
oping countries (Khachani 2001).
8. For more information on this problem, see this link: http://articles.economic-
times.indiatimes.com/2011-06-23/news/29694713_1_skilled-workers-special-
ists-eu (accessed on Apr. 29, 2014).
9. See also the Moroccan daily Le Matin of Jan. 11, 2010.
10. Resistance at times implies deportation. On January 11, 2010, more than 1100
undocumented immigrants, mostly Moroccans, were deported from southern
Italy, notably from the cities of Rosarno and Bari (Devitt 2013). As a conse-
quence of the economic crisis, the political Right in Italy pushed for a bill on
immigration that would allow vessels to patrol for illegal migrants, and use vio-
lence in case of resistance to being arrested. However, these violent tactics against
immigrants have not and will not put an end to the migration influx, as hundreds
of thousands are ready to pay for that hazardous journey with their lives (Ennaji
2012c).
200 ● Notes
Chapter 10
1. Paris Review (1999, Issue 152). See the source online:http://www.thepa-
risreview.org/interviews/893/the-art-of-fiction-no-159-tahar-ben-jelloun
(accessed on Apr. 30, 2014).
2. In 2000, he published This Blinding Absence of Light about Moroccan soldiers
who organized the military coup against King Hassan II in 1971, and who had to
spend most of their lives in the odious prison called Tazmamart.
3. From his Feb. 7, 2012, interview with the Moroccan News Agency (MAP).
4. Read more: http://wordswithoutborders.org/dispatches/article/from-the-trans-
lator-lydia-beyoud-on-fouad-larouis-my-fathers-antenna (accessed on May 1,
2014).
5. In English: About Islamism (published by Robert Laffontin 2006)
6. For more comments on this book, read http://www.algerie-focus.com/
blog/2012/08/22/revue-litteraire-le-drame-linguistique-marocain-de-fouad-
laroui/ (accessed on Mar. 8, 2013).
7. Ahmed Aboutaleb, of Moroccan origin, is the current mayor of Rotterdam, as we
will discuss in the section on political and civil society leaders.
8. See this blog about Fouad Laroui’s work: http://arablit.wordpress.
com/2013/05/07/moroccan-author-fouad-laroui-wins-prix-goncourt-dln/
(accessed on May 1, 2014).
9. See this interesting interview that Georgia Makhlouf had with Laroui in October
2011, published online in L’Orient Littéraire: http://www.lorientlitteraire.com/
article_details.php?cid=6&nid=3589 (accessed on May 1, 2014).
10. It was published in 2001 in Belgium by Luce Wilquin publishers.
11. Published in 2003 by Luce Wilquin publishers, Avin–Belgium.
Notes ● 201
12. This novel was published in three volumes by Luce Wilquin, Avin, between 2005
and 2008).
13. His book Le Maroc en mouvement: Créations contemporaines was published in Paris
by Maisonneuve & Larose (2000). Je t’ai à l’œil was published by Paris-Méditer-
ranée (2002). Lune solitaire (translation) was published by Non Lieu (2006).
14. This book, published by Le Grand Souffle in Paris, is a collection of 90 pages
containing 13 stories.
15. Read more: http://lafouaditude.blogspot.com/2007/04/quelques-fragments-
dun-maroc-disparu.html (accessed on Mar. 6, 2013).
16. Quoted from his article published by The Guardian. For more, read http://www.
guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/oct/03/abdelkader-benali-immigration-
prejudice (accessed on Mar. 6, 2013).
17. “On ne se rend pas compte à quel point c’est dur de s’intégrer. Même les march-
ands de bols sont racistes.” Le Figaro, Feb. 4, 2003.
18. See note 17.
19. The Guardian called her “The New Face of France.” See this link: http://www.
theguardian.com/world/2012/jun/22/najat-vallaud-belkacem-france (accessed on
May 2, 2014).
20. Information taken from her website: http://www.najat-vallaud-belkacem.com/
mon-parcours/ (accessed on May 2, 2014).
21. For more information see http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/nov/20/
rachida-dati-france-sarkozy-pregnant (accessed on Dec. 28, 2012).
22. See note 21.
23. Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/sep/07/france.
24. See article by Sultan Sooud Al-Qassemi, posted on Dec. 11, 2011 in The Huff-
ington Post. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sultan-sooud-alqassemi/ahmed-
aboutaleb_b_1154760.html (accessed on Dec. 24, 2012).
25. See this link: http://gulfnews.com/news/world/other-world/on-a-mission-to-
regenerate-1.950331 (accessed on Mar. 9, 2013).
26. See the Moroccan Francophone magazine Marco-Hebdo: http://www.maroc-
hebdo.press.ma/Site-Maroc-hebdo/archive/Archives_734/html_734/success.
html (accessed on Dec. 27, 2012).
27. See the entire interview in this link: http://www.hespress.com/interviews/110141.
html (accessed on Jan. 20, 2014).
28. For more data on this, see this site: http://www.euro-islam.info/country-profiles/
the-netherlands/ (accessed on Dec. 29, 2012).
29. See this interview cited here: http://fr.groups.yahoo.com/group/suffrage-univer-
sel/message/1592 (accessed on Mar. 9, 2013).
30. See this interesting link for more information: http://www.lalibre.be/actu/
politique-belge/la-premiere-bourgmestre-d-origine-marocaine-sera-n-va-
51b8f33ce4b0de6db9c8635e (accessed on May 2, 2014).
31. For more information on Sminate’s success, see the link to 7 sur 7: http://www.7sur7.
be/7s7/fr/1502/Belgique/article/detail/1522324/2012/10/23/La-premiere-bourg-
mestre-d-origine-marocaine-est-N-VA.dhtml (accessed on May 2, 2014).
202 ● Notes
32. See the website of the French TV channel TV5, which published the interview:
http://www.tv5.org/cms/chaine-francophone/Terriennes/Comite/p-16289-
Fadila-Laanan.htm (accessed on Dec. 29, 2012).
33. Ibid.
34. See the full report on this event in this link: http://www.lesoir.be/413450/article/
culture/cinema/2014-01-28/fadila-laanan-recu-sa-legion-d-honneur (accessed on
Jan. 30, 2014).
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