Moroccan Ex-Official Slams France Over Mother’s Border Rejection

Hennou Allali Maamar is one of the first female doctors in Morocco. She is one of those many Moroccans who, after their training, returned home to serve their country. "Today, this 80-year-old lady was turned away by the border police in Montpellier," the former ONE president stressed in his letter.

Without a certificate of accommodation, Hennou Allali Maamar was turned away, except that this "superfluous document" had "never been requested of her during her countless trips to France." Despite this, "the police officer decided to carry out his threat," laments Younes Maamar. He specifies that he does not understand the relentlessness with which the police insisted on turning away his mother, without any consideration for her age and without taking into account her many trips to France.

Since Paris decided to make it more difficult for Moroccans to obtain visas, this type of situation has become frequent. Several associations and personalities had moreover called on the Moroccan authorities to best manage this file in order to avoid the inconveniences and humiliations suffered by Moroccan citizens.

"I am a son and it is my mother. But looking at it more closely, it is an increasingly systematic stance that tries to take Moroccan citizens hostage to a pressure that exceeds them. No doubt the administrative procedures were followed to the letter. But what may be regrettable is that in wanting to be zealous in applying clauses and things, it is that by curbing the capacity for judgment or worse, it is that by leaving the field free for a partial or stupid zeal, then we gradually erode the bridges that bind us," he said.

For him, it was not a question of remaining silent about this further humiliation that seriously compromises the good neighborly relations between Morocco and France. "I had out of modesty but also out of shame I admit, thought to keep silent about this incident. But look at this lady, noble and upright in her Moroccan boots. The shame if it is, must be elsewhere," he concluded.