ABSTRACT
The third immigration trend is the diversification of the origin of Morocco’s immigrants. Although small in scale, there is a growing presence of Asian and Middle Eastern migrants. Most prominently however, European migration to Morocco has steadily increased since 2000 and many Europeans actually reside and work in Morocco without a residence permit, prolonging their tourist status through repeated exits and re-entries. Yet, their presence is rarely subject to public or political debate in Morocco, which again seems to reflect the Euro-centric nature of dominant migration discourses. In the last contribution to this special issue, Catherine Therrien and Chloé Pellegrini provide
specific insights into the understudied but numerically important phenomenon of French migration to Morocco. Today, nearly 50,000 French migrants live in Morocco, making it the largest migrant community in the country, ahead of sub-Saharan immigrant communities. Based on participant observation and in-depth interviews with 38 French migrants in Morocco, the authors explore migrants’ narratives and reveal that this type of migration is guided by two dominant aspirations. First, migrants demonstrate an aspiration for a better quality of life, encompassing not only economic but also intangible factors. Second, they exhibit a desire for ‘elsewhereness’ which is driven by two motivations – seeking self-fulfilment and seeking escape. The interviews also show that social relations between French migrants and Moroccans are
anything but unproblematic, be it in private or professional contexts. The authors explore the different adaptation and integration strategies of French migrants, ranging from living ‘with’ or ‘among’ Moroccans to living ‘within a bubble’ or ‘in parallel’. These reveal the different ways in which French migrants in Morocco manage the encounter and set boundaries with the Moroccan ‘other’. This micro-sociological study brings to the surface an often overlooked aspect of Morocco’s changing migratory model (and migration studies more generally), namely the growth of North-South migration and the social integration issues and tensions emerging from it.
4. Revisiting migration trends and theories – which way forward?
