{"id":5180,"date":"2026-11-11T21:45:54","date_gmt":"2026-11-11T21:45:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/diplomatique.ma\/en\/?p=5180"},"modified":"2026-11-11T21:45:54","modified_gmt":"2026-11-11T21:45:54","slug":"november-11-in-morocco-france-pays-tribute-to-moroccan-soldiers-who-died-for-it-while-the-memory-of-the-protectorate-raises-questions-that-remain-unanswered","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/diplomatique.ma\/en\/november-11-in-morocco-france-pays-tribute-to-moroccan-soldiers-who-died-for-it-while-the-memory-of-the-protectorate-raises-questions-that-remain-unanswered\/","title":{"rendered":"November 11 in Morocco: France Pays Tribute to Moroccan Soldiers Who Died for It, While the Memory of the Protectorate Raises Questions That Remain Unanswered"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: justify;\" data-pm-slice=\"1 1 []\"><em>An examination of the shared military memory between Morocco and France, from the trenches of the First World War to the battles for the liberation of Europe, and from recognition of sacrifice to the historical reckoning over the French Protectorate.<\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">On the morning of Wednesday, November 11, 2026, France\u2019s Ambassador to Morocco, Philippe Lalliot, presided over a ceremony commemorating the Armistice of November 11, 1918, at the military section of the European Cemetery in Ben M\u2019Sik, Casablanca. He was accompanied by France\u2019s Consul General in Casablanca, Aymeric Chauzeix. The ceremony was attended by local civilian and military officials, members of the diplomatic corps, the director of the French National Office for Veterans and Victims of War (ONACVG), Moroccan veterans, and pupils from French schools.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"x1ejq31n x18oe1m7 x1sy0etr xstzfhl x6ikm8r x10wlt62\" src=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/plugins\/post.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Flafranceaumaroc%2Fposts%2Fpfbid0RteJEUYZdUDTreUHhxWkz7BNHMW8qZzgpwPcJVKeWJt1cknic6u1C497HAnQj3vgl&amp;show_text=true&amp;width=500\" width=\"500\" height=\"690\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Similar ceremonies were held in several other Moroccan cities, including Tangier, Fez, Meknes, Rabat, Kenitra, Marrakech and Agadir, under the leadership of French consuls general in their respective consular districts. In the message accompanying the commemorations, the French representation recalled that thousands of Moroccan soldiers had given their lives alongside their French brothers-in-arms, describing the tribute as a celebration of a shared history between the two countries.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">These ceremonies have been repeated in Morocco for several years. France chooses military cemeteries and memorial sites to keep this memory alive, with the participation of its diplomatic and military representatives. Yet November 11 carries a broader historical meaning, requiring a distinction between the event that gave rise to the commemorative date and the other military episodes now remembered on that occasion.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">On November 11, 1918, the armistice between Germany and the Allied powers came into force, bringing the fighting of the First World War to an end. France commemorates the date as the end of the Great War. However, legislation adopted on February 28, 2012, expanded the scope of the national commemoration to honour all those who died for France, regardless of the conflict in which they served. The observance therefore includes victims of the Second World War and subsequent conflicts, rather than being limited to the soldiers of 1914\u20131918.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">This distinction is essential to understanding what takes place in Morocco. The Moroccans who served in the First World War belonged to a different military generation from those who fought in the Second World War, whose campaigns were directly connected to the rise of Nazism and France\u2019s defeat and occupation by Germany.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Available historical figures show that Moroccan military participation began decades before the liberation of France from Nazi occupation. The French Ministry of the Armed Forces records that 40,398 Moroccans served in the French army during the First World War, between 1914 and 1918. A report by the French Senate gives a slightly different figure, close to 37,000 Moroccan soldiers, with an estimated 12,000 deaths, while other studies refer to approximately 9,000 killed or missing. These discrepancies reflect differences in record-keeping methods and the classification of military losses.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">These soldiers fought in major battles, including the Marne, Verdun and the Chemin des Dames. French military archives document the presence of Moroccan units on several European fronts, where North African formations suffered heavy casualties.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Yet these men were fighting at a time when Morocco was under the French Protectorate, established by the Treaty of Fez on March 30, 1912. The sons of a country that did not yet enjoy full political sovereignty were therefore sent to European battlefields as members of the army of a power that administered their own country and controlled a substantial part of its institutions.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The Second World War brought an even more complex chapter. France was defeated in 1940, and the Vichy regime, which collaborated with Nazi Germany, took power. French colonies and protectorates in Africa remained under its administration. Following the Allied landings in North Africa in November 1942, Moroccan soldiers entered a new phase of military operations alongside the Allies. They took part in the Italian campaigns, the liberation of France and the subsequent offensives that brought Allied forces into German territory.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">An academic study published by Princeton University indicates that more than 30,000 Moroccans were recruited between 1939 and 1940, followed by more than 30,000 others who joined the French army between 1942 and 1944. These figures concern separate recruitment waves and should not be confused with the total number of Moroccans who served in the French army throughout the colonial period.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">These forces included Moroccan Tirailleurs and the Goumiers, whose names are associated with the battles in Italy, the landing in Provence and the liberation of several French cities. Their military contribution deserves to be studied through archives, individual names and casualty records, rather than reduced to general commemorative statements.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">France now celebrates the armistice and honours the soldiers who fought in its ranks. Yet a return to the history of the two world wars also recalls another reality: Morocco, whose sons contributed to European military campaigns, was itself living under the Protectorate, within a colonial system that restricted its political sovereignty and organised much of its economy around external interests.<\/p>\n<h2 style=\"text-align: justify;\">A Moroccan soldier on a European front while his country remained under the Protectorate<\/h2>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">This reality becomes clearer when examining the nature of the system that governed Morocco. The 1912 Treaty of Fez established a political and administrative arrangement in which the French Resident-General exercised decisive control over major areas of the country\u2019s administration, while the Sultan and the institutions of the Makhzen continued to exist within the framework imposed by the treaty.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">While France mobilised Moroccan soldiers for European battlefields, it was also reshaping Morocco\u2019s economy according to a structure closely connected to French strategic, commercial and financial interests.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The chapter on Morocco\u2019s economic history published in 2026 in the <em>Oxford Handbook of the Moroccan Economy<\/em> by former Moroccan finance minister Fathallah Oualalou provides important insight into this period. It examines the role of French financial institutions, the Omnium Nord-Africain, the development of ports and railways, the establishment of the Office Ch\u00e9rifien des Phosphates in 1920, and the expansion of industrial activities connected to water, electricity, trade and exports.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The same chapter indicates that, on the eve of independence in 1956, settlers owned more than one million hectares of land, in addition to areas involving collective landholdings.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">These findings place the infrastructure question within its proper historical context. France did build roads, ports, railways and industrial facilities during the Protectorate. But assessing these achievements requires more than simply listing them. It also requires examining how they were financed, which institutions owned or operated them, which territories they connected, and the economic objectives they were designed to serve.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The port of Casablanca, for example, was a central component of the colonial economy. The railway network was also linked to the transportation of minerals and agricultural products, as well as the connection of production centres to ports.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">This development facilitated certain economic activities, but it took place within a model in which France exercised considerable influence over financing, trade and productive sectors.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Whenever the French narrative refers to France\u2019s contribution to building modern Morocco, historical analysis raises another question: what did France itself gain from these infrastructures, and how were the resulting benefits distributed between the two countries?<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The issue is not to deny the existence of infrastructure that remained after independence. It is to avoid turning that infrastructure into a retrospective justification for the Protectorate system. A port can facilitate Moroccan trade while simultaneously forming part of an export network serving external interests. A railway can make transportation easier while having been designed primarily to serve mining centres and colonial economic routes.<\/p>\n<h2 style=\"text-align: justify;\">From the Second World War to the memory of Mohammed V and Moroccan Jews<\/h2>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The historical questions become more complex when we return to the period in which France was occupied by Nazi Germany and the Vichy regime was implementing discriminatory legislation against Jews in territories under its authority.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Morocco was then under the French Protectorate. Moroccan Jews were an integral part of Moroccan society and were subjects of the Sultan, alongside Muslims, within a national history extending over many centuries.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum\u2019s Holocaust Encyclopedia explains that the Vichy regime imposed anti-Jewish legislation in Morocco and Tunisia beginning in October 1940, with further restrictions introduced in 1941. These measures included quotas in educational institutions, restrictions on access to professions, economic and administrative limitations, and certain procedures involving the relocation of Jews from European districts to the mellahs.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The institution explains that the application of these laws in Morocco took place under the supervision of French Resident-General Charles Nogu\u00e8s, with the approval of Sultan Mohammed ben Youssef, later King Mohammed V. It also records that Moroccan authorities used certain means to delay measures involving the confiscation of property, and that the Sultan expressed support for Moroccan Jews and their representatives on several occasions.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">These details make it impossible to reduce the history to a simplified narrative. Mohammed V did not possess absolute authority over the Protectorate administration. Nor were the discriminatory laws merely a theoretical threat: they were implemented and harmed the rights of certain groups of Moroccan Jews.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">At the same time, the memory of the Sultan\u2019s attitude towards Moroccan Jews remains strongly present in the accounts of many Moroccan Jewish families and their descendants, both inside the Kingdom and abroad. It is reflected in testimonies and public statements expressing pride in their Moroccan origins and attachment to the history of the Kingdom.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The relevant comparison is not between Moroccan Jews and Moroccan soldiers, nor is it an attempt to measure the loyalty of one community against another. It concerns two different ways in which historical memory is passed from one generation to the next: the memory of a political and historical position associated with protecting a community against discrimination, and the memory of Moroccan soldiers who fought and died on distant fronts, while many of their names remain insufficiently represented in collective historical awareness.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Do young Moroccans know the names of the soldiers who took part in the battles of the Marne, Verdun, Italy and Provence? Does a national database exist, accessible to researchers and families, documenting the names of those killed, missing or wounded, as well as their military careers?<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">These questions concern Morocco\u2019s ability to write its own history through its archives and testimonies, rather than relying exclusively on the historical memory preserved by France.<\/p>\n<h2 style=\"text-align: justify;\">What remains of Morocco\u2019s sacrifices? A question that goes beyond laying wreaths<\/h2>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">When the French Embassy states that Moroccan soldiers gave their lives alongside their French brothers-in-arms, it acknowledges the value of their military contribution. But symbolic recognition is different from the rights arising from military service and the historical responsibilities of the state that recruited them.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">There is a difference between honouring a Moroccan soldier in a military cemetery, establishing whether his family received all the entitlements available under French military legislation, opening archives to researchers, and incorporating the Moroccan contribution into French school curricula, museums and national historical narratives.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The 2025 ceremonies illustrate that recognition has not been limited to commemoration. At Ben M\u2019Sik Cemetery in Casablanca, Moroccan veterans were honoured. Ibrahim Dahbi received the Legion of Honour, while M\u2019Barek Jemato was awarded the Combatant\u2019s Cross for his service during the Indochina War, according to Moroccan press reports.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">But do Moroccan institutions today possess a comprehensive register that makes it possible to trace the records of these veterans? Have pensions, entitlements and compensation potentially still owed to some of them or their families been fully identified? The available information does not provide comprehensive national figures that would answer these questions.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">A request for France to open its military archives to Moroccan researchers, facilitate access to individual service records and provide information concerning those killed or missing would constitute a practical step beyond the annual commemorations.<\/p>\n<h2 style=\"text-align: justify;\">Does Morocco deserve half of France\u2019s wealth? A symbolic question leading to a broader historical reckoning<\/h2>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Demanding 50 per cent of France\u2019s minerals, roads, ports, maritime resources and technology may appear legally impossible. No rule of international law provides that military participation in the liberation of France automatically entitles Morocco to a share of French wealth.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">But this figure, understood as an expression of protest, raises a question worth examining: if France considers Moroccan sacrifices an integral part of its national history, can it approach the economic history of the Protectorate with the same degree of candour?<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Morocco does not need half of France\u2019s wealth to demonstrate the value of its sons\u2019 sacrifices. It does, however, need a documented examination of what took place during the Protectorate and a serious debate about the transfer of wealth, concessions, colonial property and the nature of the economic relations that followed independence.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Phosphates, whose national office was established under the Protectorate in 1920, became a strategic national sector after independence. Land held by settlers raised questions of property recovery and redistribution. Ports, railways and industrial facilities were also progressively incorporated into the process of rebuilding the national economy.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">However, it would be inaccurate to place all these issues in the same category or to assume that France still exercises colonial control over Morocco\u2019s resources today. Morocco regained its sovereignty, built its institutions, developed strategic sectors and negotiated partnerships according to its national interests.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Yet the economic history of the Protectorate remains a legitimate subject of research, particularly regarding the distribution of benefits and costs, transfers of ownership and structural imbalances that may have persisted.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Current economic relations with France should be assessed through figures, contracts, taxation, investment, market shares and technology transfer, rather than by automatically equating every French company with the colonial system. A commercial investment does not become an act of colonialism simply because its operator is French. But describing it as a partnership does not exempt it from scrutiny regarding balance, transparency and benefits for the Moroccan economy.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The challenge is to make recognition of the military past part of a wider debate about memory, fairness and economic sovereignty, without turning soldiers\u2019 sacrifices into the basis for financial claims that have no direct legal foundation.<\/p>\n<h2 style=\"text-align: justify;\">Who writes the memory of Moroccan soldiers?<\/h2>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Every November 11, military cemeteries return to public memory. Flags are raised, wreaths are laid and soldiers who died for France are honoured. Pupils from French schools take part in these ceremonies as part of the transmission of historical memory to younger generations.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">But what place do Moroccan soldiers occupy in Morocco\u2019s national memory? Do Moroccan educational and cultural institutions possess sufficient historical material to explain to pupils how their ancestors found themselves in the trenches of the First World War and later on the battlefields of the Second World War? What do younger generations know about their battles, their names and their graves?<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Morocco needs to address this issue through its universities, historical institutions and the High Commission for Former Resistance Fighters and Former Members of the Liberation Army, in cooperation with French military archives, in order to establish a documented national record of Moroccan participation in European wars.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Joint commemorations could also develop into research programmes, documentary exhibitions and Franco-Moroccan historical conferences presenting the testimonies of veterans and their families, while making military archives more accessible to researchers.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Military cemeteries containing the remains of Moroccan soldiers deserve particular attention as sites that also belong to Morocco\u2019s historical memory.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The soldiers whose memory France honours today did not lose their Moroccan identity when they wore the French uniform. Their families waited for them in Moroccan homes, and the towns and villages they left behind remain part of the history of the Kingdom.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">On November 11, 2026, France stands before the graves of its soldiers and recalls those who gave their lives for it. In Casablanca and other Moroccan cities, Moroccan officials participate in ceremonies remembering Moroccan soldiers who fought under the French flag.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">But these ceremonies also open a window onto a history that deserves a broader Moroccan examination: the history of a country whose sons helped defend France and Europe during two world wars, while Morocco itself was living through the Protectorate and a long process of regaining its independence.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The question that should remain open before French and Moroccan institutions is whether this shared memory can move beyond an annual tribute to fallen soldiers towards full historical recognition of their contribution, the opening of archives to their families and researchers, and the examination of cases that may still require fair treatment.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">If France considers these soldiers part of its history, Morocco has an equal responsibility to give them a living place in its national memory, rather than leaving them as names recalled during ceremonies organised by a foreign embassy on Moroccan soil.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>An examination of the shared military memory between Morocco and France, from the trenches of the First World War to the battles for the liberation of Europe, and from recognition of sacrifice to the historical reckoning over the French Protectorate. On the morning of Wednesday, November 11, 2026, France\u2019s Ambassador to Morocco, Philippe Lalliot, presided [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":5181,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39,43,42,41,76],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5180","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-africa","category-asia-americas","category-europe-russia","category-middle-east","category-the-maghreb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/diplomatique.ma\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5180","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/diplomatique.ma\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/diplomatique.ma\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diplomatique.ma\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diplomatique.ma\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5180"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/diplomatique.ma\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5180\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5182,"href":"https:\/\/diplomatique.ma\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5180\/revisions\/5182"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diplomatique.ma\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5181"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/diplomatique.ma\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5180"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diplomatique.ma\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5180"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diplomatique.ma\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5180"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}