Protests escalate in Morocco: Why are young people taking to the streets en masse?

BarcelonaThe streets of several Moroccan cities witnessed the fifth consecutive day of protests organized through social media by an anonymous youth group called GenZ 212 on Wednesday night. Tensions have escalated over the past two days, with clashes between police and protesters. which resulted in the death of two people, more than 300 injured and 400 arrests, according to the Ministry of the InteriorThe wave of protests comes at an inopportune time for the Moroccan regime, just over two months before the start of the African Cup of Nations football tournament, a sort of rehearsal for the 2030 World Cup, which the North African country is hosting alongside Spain and Portugal.

The coincidence of the protests with the sporting event is not entirely coincidental, as one of the complaints of young people is that the government is spending an enormous amount of resources to build new stadiums. while inequalities increase and public services deteriorate. Recently, it was reported that eight pregnant women died in Agadir hospital because the facility lacked the necessary resources to care for them. In its public statements, the until-recently unknown GenZ 212 group defines itself as "a space for debate" on issues that "concern all citizens, such as healthcare, education, and the fight against corruption."

Although GenZ 212 claims to reject violence, the demonstrations have erupted into riots in several cities. The most serious were in the south of the country, in Lqliâa, near the city of Agadir, where a group of people attempted to storm and set fire to a police station. To prevent this, the police used their firearms, resulting in the deaths of two of the assailants, according to the official Moroccan news agency MAP. The group's name refers to Generation Z, which is the term used in sociology to describe people born between 1990 and 2010.

In Morocco, the right to demonstrate is highly restricted, and permits to organize anti-government protests are difficult to obtain. As a result, police forcibly broke up demonstrations in the early days, leading to tense and violent scenes. Several videos circulating on social media show police vans ramming into protesters. The brutality of the protest crackdown has led protesters to turn their anger on police vehicles: up to 140 were set on fire across the country. Furthermore, in some cities, particularly Inzegane and Oujda (in the south and east of the country, respectively), public buildings and bank headquarters were also attacked.

The Shadow of the Monarchy

Although legislative elections have been held in Morocco for more than two decades, the executive branch's room for manoeuvre is limited, since King Mohammed VI and his advisors They constitute the true center of power in the country. After the former opposition parties, the socialist USFP and the Islamist PJD, once in power, were unable to implement the promised changes, the RNI, a party close to the palace, won the 2021 elections. In fact, its leader and current prime minister, Aziz Akhannouch, is a tycoon and personal friend of the king.

The lack of instruments to channel the social demands of the population in the face of a system perceived as corrupt has provoked other powerful waves of demonstrations, like those of 2011, following the outbreak of the so-called Arab Springs, or those in the Rif region in 2016, which were harshly repressed. "These protests are important because they are very transversal and spread throughout the country, as was also the case in 2011. On other occasions, they were more localized. An important fact is that now the political opposition has also been added," explains Irene Fernandez-Molina, a professor at the University of Exeter specializing in Morocco.

For her part, Professor Khadija Mohsen-Finan, of IEP University in Paris, emphasizes that the protests have surprised the authorities, who are "very self-confident" after having received support from several countries for the Moroccan thesis on Western Sahara. Both experts agree that if there is no negotiation between the authorities and the protesters, an even greater escalation of tensions is likely in the coming days.