Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
France Opens a Branch Office: The Protectorate
Whatever illusions of control Morocco's sultanate might have been clutching slipped away
at the 1906 Conference of Algeciras, when control of Morocco's banks, customs and police
force was handed over to France for 'protection'. The 1912 Treaty of Fez establishing Mo-
rocco as a French protectorate made colonisation official, and the French hand-picked a
new sultan with all the backbone of a sock puppet. More than 100,000 French administrat-
ors, outcasts and opportunists arrived in cities across Morocco to take up residence in
French villes nouvelles (new towns).
Résident-Général Louis Lyautey saw to it that these new French suburbs were kitted out
with all the mod cons: electricity, trains, roads and running water. Villes nouvelles were de-
signed to be worlds apart from adjacent Moroccan medinas (historic city centres), with
French schools, churches, villas and grand boulevards named after French generals. No ex-
pense or effort was spared to make the new arrivals feel right at home - which made their
presence all the more galling for Moroccans footing the bill through taxes, shouldering
most of the labour and still living in crowded, poorly serviced medinas. Lyautey had
already set up French colonial enterprises in Vietnam, Madagascar and Algeria, so he ar-
rived in Morocco with the confidence of a CEO and a clear plan of action: break up the
Berbers, ally with the Spanish when needed and keep business running by all available
means.
Nationalist Resistance
Once French-backed Sultan Yusuf died and his French-educated 18-year-old son Mo-
hammed V became sultan, Lyautey expected that French business in Morocco would carry
on as usual. He hadn't counted on a fiery young nationalist as sultan, or the staunch inde-
pendence of ordinary Moroccans. Mining strikes and union organising interfered with
France's most profitable colonial businesses, and military attention was diverted to force
Moroccans back into the mines. Berbers had never accepted foreign dominion without a
fight, and they were not about to make an exception for the French. By 1921 the Rif was up
in arms against the Spanish and French under the leadership of Ibn Abd al-Krim al-Khat-
tabi. It took five years, 300,000 Spanish and French forces and two budding Fascists (Fran-
cisco Franco and Marshal Pétain) to capture Ibn Abd al-Krim and force him into exile.
The French won a powerful ally when they named Berber warlord Thami el-Glaoui
pasha of Marrakesh, but they also made a lot of enemies. The title gave the pasha implicit
license to do as he pleased, which included mafia-style executions and extortion schemes,
