"People see there is wealth, but it is poorly distributed"

KK: In autumn 2025, Morocco witnessed a series of protests organised by the so-called ‘GenZ 212’ sparked by the tragic death of several pregnant women in a hospital in Agadir. The main demands of the mostly young protesters were for better healthcare and education. Dr. Mohammed Masbah, why did Moroccans take to the streets?

MM: The government’s priorities are not in line with most people’s expectations. Many citizens perceive a widening gap between state spending choices and their daily realities. They see that the state spends its budget on projects like stadiums for the 2030 World Cup while there is a real shortage of hospitals in remote areas. It seems to many citizens that the state favours prestige investments over basic public services, such as health and education – and if tax revenue is spent on something relevant, these investments are not well distributed. For example, over 70% of hospitals are concentrated in big cities like Casablanca and Rabat.

This discrepancy is called ‘Le Maroc à deux vitesses’ (Morocco at two speeds). It means that there are clear inequalities – not only between regions, but also between genders and social classes. Take Rabat, the capital: some streets are very modern; you can see new hospitals and infrastructure. However, if you leave the city for just 50 miles in any direction, you will find pure poverty. People see there is wealth in the country, but it is poorly distributed. This visible contrast frustrates many, who feel excluded from the social and economic ladder.

KK: What is the historical and social context in which the GenZ 212 protests are unfolding?

MM: To understand GenZ 212’s historical roots and today’s state responses to the demonstrations, we should look at the 20 February 2011 Movement. It was one of the largest protests Morocco has seen for decades. Protestors called for a constitutional monarchy and fought against corruption. What followed was our current constitution, with promises of political transition and free and fair elections. None of these promises have been fulfilled as they should be. While important institutional reforms were introduced, there is still a lack of accountability and redistribution. So, structural reforms are only partially realised. This is GenZ 212’s dilemma.

KK: Did you, as a long-term observer of Morocco and Moroccan citizen yourself, expect protests to happen?

MM: To be honest, I expected an even bigger wave of protest because the regime’s way of controlling everything is not a sustainable model. Civil society is suffocated. Freedom of press is absent. The political field has narrowed significantly, limiting the space for credible alternatives to emerge. A Moroccan Zohran Mamdani, for example, would be stopped by the lowest echelon of the bureaucracy in Morocco, the Moqaddami, which would not give him permission to run for elections.

In 2018, I wrote an article asking ‘What does the decline of trust in political parties mean for Morocco?’ I concluded that, at some point, the government or the regime will have to face society directly. This is because political parties and labour unions lost credibility. They cannot fully exercise their function as mediators between state and society anymore. Normally, they play the role of a bumper for the regime, able to absorb a coming shock. I realised back in 2017 that the buffer zone is shrinking and that, eventually, there would be a direct confrontation.

KK: What is new about the GenZ 212 that previous movements did differently?

MM: Due to the movement’s total anonymity, there is no leadership and no ideology. These protests are an expression of the vacuum. They act like someone who is hurt, who knows that something is wrong, but they cannot articulate their grievances. This reflects a deep crisis of representation, not only a crisis of policy. In the 20 February Movement, the leaders were very diverse, coming from the left, the Islamists, the youth. Still, at least there was a kind of leadership able to articulate demands.

KK: You are referring to the protest’s organisation on the online platform Discord. Do you think its anonymity weakened the GenZ 212 movement?

MM: Yes. Some people even asked, ‘Who says that these protests have not been organised or infiltrated by a foreign entity?’ This does not mean that their [the protesters] demands are not valid. I also know that many activists from GenZ 212 are suffering. Hundreds have been detained. Nevertheless, in order to have a strong and legitimate social movement, you need credible leaders who can assume responsibility and negotiate with the state. This is one of the reasons why GenZ 212 received less overall support.

KK: Who did support the movement?

MM: In the beginning of the movement, many Moroccans supported the movement’s demands. A survey showed that more than 50% of Moroccans initially supported the protests when they broke out on 27 September 2025. The young, the poor, and women were feeling especially disillusioned. However, after the royal speech on 10 October 2025, support declined. It was apparent that people were not going out into the streets, unlike during the 20 February 2011 Movement. Thousands of people protested across the country overall, but that is not a critical mass able to change the balance of power. Without sustained cross-class mobilisation, protest momentum is difficult to maintain.

KK: Why didn’t the movement reach a critical mass?

MM: As I said, at the beginning of the protests many Moroccans supported the movement’s demands. But when videos of protestors setting fire to a police station and committing robberies and lootingsii went viral, they created a turning point for non-support. I think that was the perfect backdrop for the regime to present themselves as protectors against chaos. These videos justified their interventions. Moroccan society highly values stability, so even limited disorder can decisively shift the public opinion.

KK: What about the videos showing police violence?

MM: We must analyse this step by step. The protests started peacefully. There was a minimum of violence from the police. They detained the protesters, took them to police stations, and recorded their names to build a database on activists and possible leaders. This movement was extremely new for authorities. Then the police started to repress them with sticks and so forth, pushing the protestors to react with violence, as we saw with the lootings. In Morocco, we had not witnessed this kind of scenario in a long time. Following this, the police increased their violence. The new strategy of the regime is to repress protests from the beginning to prevent their growth, as we observed in the Rif protests in 2016.

KK: The Rif movement was a popular movement that organised mass protests between October 2016 and June 2017 in the north of Morocco.

MM: Yes. Before that, in 2011, the regime thought that repressing protesters might backfire, so they didn’t. However, in 2016, they repressed them and it worked. They imprisoned people for 20, even 30 years. Now they’ve done the same with the protestors of the GenZ 212 movement. From the regime’s perspective, this deterrence approach aims at discouraging broader mobilisation, and to be honest it seems to have worked so far.

KK: Is that the reason why the GenZ 212 protests ended rather quickly?

MM: One of them. I identify four main factors. The above-mentioned extreme repression follows a multi-level approach of not just taking protestors themselves to the police and judiciary but also threatening and going after their families. The second factor is that the GenZ 212 movement did not have enough public support to make it a strong social movement. Factor three is the opaqueness of the movement itself, which I mentioned earlier. Lastly, the government was able to respond strategically to the limited demands of health and education and thereby appease the people. They did increase the budgets substantially. However, the current situation is not really a problem of finance. It is a problem of governance. The root problems are corruption and inequality. Therefore, despite high government spending on education and health, the use of these funds is not efficient.

KK: How do you see this situation evolving in the future?

MM: I do not know if a new protest movement will evolve soon. The root causes of the 20 February Movement, the Rif protests, and the Gen Z212 protests remain, yet there are facts speaking against the emergence of new upheaval: the 20 February Movement and the Rif protests happened during the peak of the demographic transition.iii

KK: At the peak of the demographic transition, there was an even bigger surplus of young people, eager to integrate the job market and to secure their future, than today. Due to this overflow, many of them were unable to find work, worsening already dire socioeconomic conditions that further fuelled their discontent.

MM: Exactly. Now this period has passed its peak, so there is less pressure. In addition, the current regime consolidated its power post-2011. Even so, living costs have increased dramatically in Morocco in recent years, especially after the COVID-19 pandemic. Therefore, to be honest, I am surprised that people do not protest more. To conclude, the structural grievances persist, but fear of chaos, fragmentation, and the absence of credible political alternatives reduce the likelihood of sustained mobilisation in the short term.

KK: Thank you very much for the interview.

The opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung e.V.