Tags: Morocco, Generation Z, Genz212,
In the kingdom of the “Commander of the Faithful,” waves of anger continue generation after generation, and voices demanding dignity and social justice rise. The Makhzen regime has chosen to meet legitimate demands with repression instead of listening, and with batons instead of dialogue. Scenes of running over protestors and arrests have become the most prominent feature of youth protests, now in their second week, sweeping through the cities of Rabat, Casablanca, Agadir, and others, exposing the depth of the chasm between glittering official promises and an increasingly suffocated social reality.
The wave gripping Morocco’s cities, from Rabat to Casablanca and Agadir, was a resounding cry expressing a social explosion suppressed for years. Over consecutive days, young people defied bans and took to the squares, chanting slogans unfamiliar to the authorities or official media, in a direct confrontation with an economic and social reality that is growing harsher. The scene was shocking: a state talking about “economic take-off” and “developmental transformation,” while its youth raised banners clearly stating, “Health first… We don’t want the World Cup.”
For the first time, this anger is not backed by opposition parties or professional unions, but by a new digital generation that calls itself “Generation Z 212.” This generation no longer believes in mediation or flattering speeches. Instead, it mobilizes from Discord, TikTok, and Instagram rooms, self-organizes, and articulates its demands with a simple but decisive tongue: “We want a state that respects us, that doesn’t polish its image abroad while leaving us to suffer at home.” In this sense, the movement was not merely a social protest, but an announcement of the birth of a new political consciousness outside the molds of classic parties, and an explicit rebellion against the logic of eternal leadership.
The slogans that roared from their throats were the most honest mirror of the disappointments of a generation exhausted by bills, dreams of emigration, and unemployment. A generation that encapsulates its political awareness in one phrase: “No health, no education, this is the Morocco of ‘God is Generous’” (an idiom often used with a sense of ironic resignation). A simple yet stinging slogan, summarizing the equation of daily life in a country that boasts of hosting the World Cup while its hospital fails to save a pregnant woman, and its primary school classroom cannot accommodate a student without overcrowding. It is a moment of painful collective awareness, where young people realize that their problem is not a “lack of resources,” but a misordering of priorities, and a system that prefers concrete over people.
Health and Education at the Forefront of Popular Anger
In a country that talks about the “New Development Model,” the school and the hospital, the cornerstones of any real development, appear to be in an unenviable state. Public school classrooms have turned into overcrowded rooms exceeding their capacity, where generations seeking hope study between walls, while health facilities are absent in villages, and citizens in major cities queue for long hours outside overwhelmed hospitals. Between promises of reform and the reality of suffering, families are lost between financially exhausting private schools and humanly exhausting public hospitals.
Despite the allocation of huge annual budgets, reaching nearly 86 billion dirhams for education and 32 billion for health in 2025, the results on the ground remain meager, reflected in international indicators that place Morocco at low global rankings for the quality of education and healthcare. The numbers don’t lie: one doctor for every 2,300 citizens, one nurse for every 900 people, and classrooms packed with up to 36 students per session. Despite these facts, the government speaks to the people about “structural reforms” and “major programs,” as if it were talking about another country not inhabited by poverty or familiar with waiting at hospital doors.
Even more egregious is the government’s insistence on marketing its “achievements,” ignoring that the deaths of eight pregnant women in one hospital is a national tragedy that summarizes the failure of the entire system. The health and education sectors have become a mirror reflecting the blatant contradiction between a shining official discourse and a fracturing social reality. Thus, it was not surprising that the first slogans of the angry youth were demands for medicine and knowledge, not stadiums and cups.
While the burdened school and the failing hospital represent the most visible face of the crisis, what lies behind them—the figures for unemployment and poverty—reveals the deeper aspect of the tragedy. When a young person cannot find work, and the family is worn down by the high cost of living, protest becomes a necessity for survival.
The Unemployment and Poverty Crisis… When the Middle Class Erodes
Unemployment in Morocco has also become a structural problem threatening the stability of the entire society. According to official figures, unemployment rates have exceeded 12.8%, a figure that not only reflects the government’s failure to create sufficient job opportunities but also shows an imbalance in the economic structure, which has come to rely on fragile sectors that provide neither permanent jobs nor wages that preserve dignity. With the expansion of the informal sector, which hosts two-thirds of the labor force, millions of Moroccans now live without social coverage or health protection, in a situation that resembles “working to survive” more than “working to live.”
What was once considered a secure middle class has begun to slowly erode under the blows of inflation, indirect taxes, and rising prices for food, housing, and energy. This class, historically the social safety valve, now finds itself facing a new reality: stagnant wages that do not keep pace with the high cost of living, private schools that drain income, and collapsing public services, gradually turning it into a poor class dragging behind it the dreams of stability promised by successive governments. The spectacle of the middle class’s decline is a political and social warning sign of a wider explosion.
As for university graduates, they have become the emblem of collective disappointment, as more than a third of graduates cannot find work in their specialties, while a quarter remain completely unemployed. It is as if studying in Morocco is no longer a path to the future, but a losing investment in a state that fails to connect education with the labor market. With the absence of prospects, frustration increases, and anger turns into an act of protest, led by generations that no longer believe in the rhetoric of “patience,” simply because they no longer have anything left to lose.
And when the pain intensifies, and people go out demanding dignity, the real response of conscious states is listening and dialogue. But in the “kingdom of the Commander of the Faithful,” the authority chose to muzzle mouths instead of hearing them, and to confront social demands with batons, not policies.
Arrests… Repression… and Running Down Protestors
What the streets of Morocco witnessed in recent days was a widespread campaign of repression that took the form of field pursuit. From the first hours of the gatherings, security forces besieged public squares, prevented protestors from reaching assembly points, and arrested dozens of young people in major cities like Rabat, Casablanca, and Agadir. Instead of being intermediaries to protect protestors and ensure their peacefulness, security personnel turned into tools of repression using excessive violence to disperse peaceful vigils that held nothing but signs reading “Health first… We don’t want the World Cup.” The result: three deaths so far.
The scene went beyond the limits of a ban to something resembling collective punishment, with running-down operations by Royal Gendarmerie vehicles documented by video clips and confirmed by field sources, leaving dead and injured among peaceful demonstrators who were chanting “Peaceful… Peaceful” in cities like Aït Amira, Khénifra, Agadir, Oujda, and Marrakesh.
Scenes of being run over that recall the images of totalitarian regimes, and reveal the collapse of the official discourse that boasts of a “state of law” while the blood of those demanding the right to treatment and education is shed. Repression is no longer hidden behind statements; it has become clearly visible in the streets, in front of phone cameras, and among the moans of the victims.
This shocking security response aroused the condemnation of human rights associations and unions, which denounced the “flagrant violation of the Constitution” and “dereliction of international commitments,” warning that the state is moving in a dangerous direction that links stability to force instead of trust.
In an era when the government talks about “democratic transition,” its cars were running over its citizens. While its statements call for “dialogue within institutions,” the institutions themselves were closing their doors to the angry. It is a painful paradox that summarizes Morocco’s equation today: a regime that wants to appear advanced abroad, but behaves as if time has stood still domestically.
Thus, the Moroccan street protests, met by the authorities with violence, running over, and arrests, reveal that the kingdom of the “Commander of the Faithful” is moving rapidly towards a comprehensive crisis that cannot be hidden behind World Cup banners or the slogans of the “New Development Model.”
When the right to life becomes a charge, and demanding health and education a threat, the fissure between the state and society has become a deep gap that threatens a larger explosion unless Rabat realizes that people are not governed by batons, and that “Generation Z 212” is not a passing wave, but a harbinger of a new consciousness demanding a Morocco that spends on its people, not on image and corruption.
