Introduction: revisiting Moroccan migrations

Over the second half of the twentieth century, Morocco has become one of the world’s major emigration countries. Notwithstanding increasing European immigration restrictions since the early 1970s, Moroccan emigration has shown a striking persistence and has become more diversified, both in terms of destination countries and origin regions within Morocco. Focusing first on France as well as Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany, Moroccan emigrations have diversified to Italy and Spain from the late 1980s and, to a certain extent, to North America. This has consolidated Morocco’s position as an emigration country. Since the mid-1990s, Morocco has even overtaken Turkey as the main source of non-EU migration to Europe. Although the 2008 Global Economic Crisis, and particularly high unemployment in southern European destinations, has slowed down the number of departures to a certain extent, emigration is still very high and the roughly 4 million Moroccans living abroad continue to represent vital social, economic and political interests.