Thousands out in Morocco against corrupt regime

The “Gen Z protests” show that today’s young people can’t take any more (Photo: LeFilExpress on X)

Morocco has been ablaze with resistance for over a week. Thousands of mainly young protesters have marched through the streets in several cities of the north African country in the face of police repression. 

Police have used water cannons and arrested over 400 people. And in Lqliaa, southern Morocco, armed cops murdered three people who were attempting to storm a police station. But this has not extinguished the mass movement. 

The movement in Morocco has been dubbed Gen Z 212—a reference to the international dialling code for the country. It has echoes of the uprisings flickering into life across the Global South, including in Kenya, Nepal, Indonesia, the Philippines, Madagascar and Peru. 

The immediate trigger is the state’s investment in the 2030 Fifa men’s football World Cup, set to be hosted jointly between Morocco, Portugal and Spain. 

Protesters are furious that prime minister Aziz Akhannouch’s government is prioritising the sporting spectacle over jobs, education and healthcare.

He is a billionaire who leads the neoliberal National Rally of Independents, the main party in the coalition government that has run Morocco since 2021. 

While it pours money into stadiums, the health system is crumbling. Eight pregnant women died after caesarean section deliveries in the port city of Agadir last month.

An anonymous protester told the BBC that his local hospital was dirty and that patients had to bribe staff to see a doctor. 

Unemployment among young people is almost 36 percent, with many more forced into precarious jobs. 

There are signs that the mass movement is fusing economic and political demands. Demonstrators in Casablanca in the west, Oujda in the north east and Taza in the north have called for Akhannouch to resign. 

Protesters have chanted, “The people want an end to corruption”. The slogan echoes the chants of the Arab revolutions of 2011, which would often begin with, “The people want…”.

Morocco saw protests during the Arab Spring, but the state suppressed them through a mixture of repression and minor concessions.

King Mohammed VI pushed through constitutional changes that gave more powers to the prime minister. 

Most of the protests have stopped short of challenging Mohammed VI, the corrupt billionaire monarch.

The new GenZ 212 group says it’s a “space for discussion” on “issues that concern all citizens, such as health, education and the fight against corruption”.

It says it acts out of “love for the country and the king” and has appealed to the monarch as “the guarantor of national unity and dignity” to intervene against Akhannouch.

But King Mohammed VI is the head of the corrupt state. His entourage likes him to be known as the “the king of the poor”, but his net worth has been estimated at up to £6.5 billion. 

In 2020, Mohammed VI bought a mansion by the Eiffel Tower in Paris from the Saudi royal family for £75 million. He negotiated the sale of the 12-bedroom mansion by the Champ de Mars directly with Saudi Arabian former minister Khalid bin Sultan.

When an earthquake hit in 2023, he sat in that luxurious mansion while the death toll climbed to almost 3,000 people. Many of the survivors are still living in tents in the Al Haouz region. 

But the revolt can grow into a challenge to the whole corrupt system. 

The “Gen Z protests” show that today’s young people can’t take any more. Although the contexts are very different, the causes are similar—lack of jobs, high prices and state repression. 

The question now is how can the uprisings sustain themselves? The organised working class, with the power to shut down the profit system and state, has to enter the scene to deepen the revolt.