Morocco Considers Visa Requirements for French Visitors Amid Online Campaign

The hashtag #طبقوا_الفيزا_علي_فرنسا (impose a visa on France) is spreading like wildfire on X (formerly Twitter). "Imposing visas is a sovereign right," writes a Moroccan Internet user. "Impose visa restrictions on France and get rid of all that remains of its colonialism, we should also get rid of their language," writes another. This online campaign follows the expulsion by the Moroccan authorities of the deputy editor-in-chief of the French weekly Marianne, Quentin Müller, and his colleague, the reporter and photojournalist, Thérèse Di Campo.

On Wednesday, these two French journalists were arrested at 3 a.m. in the hotel in Casablanca where they were staying, then taken to the airport to board a flight to Marseille. "At 3 a.m., ten men dressed in civilian clothes arrested Thérèse Di Campo and me in Casablanca. We were taken away and forcibly expelled from the country without any explanation," Quentin Müller revealed in a post on X, before denouncing the arrest as "purely political." "The subject of our research on the spot concerned the economic, social and libertarian violence of this Moroccan regime, animated by the all-powerful king, his court and his ultra-repressive security services," he specified, accompanying his tweet with the hashtag #Journalismisnotacrime.

Reacting to their expulsion during Thursday’s weekly government press briefing, Moroccan government spokesman Mustapha Baitas explained that these two journalists "entered Morocco as tourists. [...] They did not request any authorization and did not declare that they were journalists. They were expelled on the basis of a decision by the administrative authorities, in accordance with the provisions of the law." He also said that "more than 310 foreign journalists, representing 90 international media" including a quarter, or 78 correspondents representing 16 media, are French nationals had covered the powerful and devastating earthquake that shook Morocco.

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"Thirteen of them were accredited during the earthquake and three had permanent accreditation, despite the fact that the coverage, in some cases, was not objective," added the government spokesman. If these journalists did not experience a similar situation to those