France Considers Honoring Moroccan Hero Hammou Moussik in Street Renaming Initiative

Alongside the "bill strengthening secularism and republican principles", the French government wants to rename streets or erect monuments in honor of figures from diverse backgrounds. Emmanuel Macron expressed this wish during an interview with Brut. It is a "kind of catalog of the 300 or 500 names of these heroes". According to Nadia Hai, the junior minister in charge of the City, this list is currently being studied.

A team of about twenty researchers, association leaders or museum curators, sociologists, artists, including the historian Yvan Gastaut (who chairs this "scientific committee") or the novelist Leïla Slimani, are working on this. This work is to be effective "very early 2021", she assures. "There is no point in rewriting the past concerning the demands to remove statues of figures from colonialism or the slave trade," the minister believes. "Let’s rather write the common page that will bring us together."

Le Journal du Dimanche has revealed an excerpt of the personalities proposed by the French government. Among them is the Moroccan Hammou Moussik. Born in 1918, he is a Moroccan goumier (indigenous Moroccan soldier) from World War II. With his co-religionists, he participated in the liberation of Corsica within the Free French Forces (FFL). In 1941, at the age of 23, he joined the 60th Moroccan Goum. Before the liberation of Corsica, he had fought in Tunisia against the German and Italian forces in 1942.

He later joined the 2nd group of Moroccan tabors. Under the orders of Colonel Boyer de Latour, Hammou landed in Ajaccio on September 23, 1943. He also participated in the fighting on the island of Elba in June 1944, the landing in Provence in August, the occupation of Germany until November 1945, and then the Indochina War in June 1950, as a moqqadem aouel (chief sergeant).

Hammou Moussik served ten years and ten months in the French army. His participation in the fighting was crowned with success. He received a total of seven medals, including the Legion of Honor, the Military Medal, and the War Cross 1939-1945 with bronze star.