Moroccan King’s Past Comments on Women’s Attire Resurface Amid Shorts Controversy

In the late 1980s, King Hassan II had already addressed the issue of wearing shorts, which is now causing controversy. "My daughters have done swimming, they have played basketball in shorts... They have played tennis in skirts, they have had sports as an option for their studies. The same for my sisters, in my father’s time, my granddaughter... The parents of all Moroccans would not understand that we come and amputate them of something that religion has recognized for them. Provided, of course, that there is no provocation and upheaval in society," the former monarch had declared, who was Alain Duhamel’s guest on the highly popular "L’heure de vérité" program.

While the case of the Belgian volunteer girls wearing shorts is causing a lot of ink to flow, Internet users have dug into their archives and brought out the video in question, which has been widely shared on social networks. Many Internet users have noted the relevance and common sense in Hassan II’s remarks, and above all, a vision that embraces the aspirations of Morocco, a country that continues to impose itself with a unique model in the Maghreb and where women enjoy a certain freedom granted to them by society and religion.

It should be noted that these same Internet users have initiated a large-scale movement to support the Belgian volunteer girls. Called "Yes we short", it is a march in shorts in Aïn Diab to, they say, "express their solidarity with the Belgian volunteers" and send "a message to the obscurantists who want to [...] impose extreme thinking and destroy the image of [their] country".