Introduction: revisiting Moroccan migrations

The Historical and Social-Cultural Context of Acculturation of Moroccan-Dutch

“…Hundreds of thousands of Moroccans migrated to France, (French) Algeria and also within Morocco to urban areas (Leichtman, 2002). Later on they moved to other part parts of the world, mainly Europe (Berriane et al, 2015).…”

“…The migration patterns of Moroccans to Europe are impacted by two factors: colonialism (De Haas, 2014) and demand for low-skilled labor (Berriane et al, 2015). The Moroccan migration already started more than a century ago, from the First World War, when around 100,000 Moroccans (mainly from the south of the country) went to France to serve in the army or do low-skilled jobs disliked by the French (De Haas, 2005;Sadiqi & Ennaji, 2004).…”

“…Moroccans from the Rif region were recruited for the army of General Franco during the Spanish Civil War of 1936 to 1939 and Moroccans had fought for France during the Second World War and in French Indochina (Berriane et al, 2015). Other migrants from Eastern Morocco (i.e., Oujda) and the Rif went to Algeria, which was part of France until 1962 (Alba & Silberman, 2002).…”

“…Nowadays, at least ten percent out of a population of almost 34 million ethnic Moroccans lives abroad, with around 1 million living in France (Berriane et al, 2015;De Haas et al, 2014). The other two-thirds are scattered throughout Western Europe (e.g., in Germany around 130,000, in Belgium 300,000, in Italy 500,000, and in Spain 800,000) and form with approximately two million individuals the largest Moroccan communities outside Morocco.…”

“…There are more than 4 million persons of Moroccan descent living outside Morocco, thereby constituting one of the largest non-western Muslim minorities in Western countries (Berriane, De Haas, & Natter, 2015;Del Bel-Air, 2016). Although the group of European citizens with a Moroccan background is the largest non-EU group of migrants living in Europe, they settled all over the world (De Haas, 2007).…”