Morocco’s Youth Revolt: World Cup Dreams Clash with Healthcare Realities

"We don’t want a World Cup, we want healthcare". This is the slogan chanted for several days in the streets of Rabat, Casablanca and Tangier, by young people who have responded in large numbers to the call to demonstrate by the GenZ 212 collective. The protesters expressed their anger at unemployment, the scale of corruption and the disaster observed in the education and health sectors. According to Trading Economics cited by El Confidencial, the unemployment rate in Morocco is 12.8% nationally, and 37% among young people who, due to lack of opportunities, try to emigrate each year, at the risk of their lives.

The demonstrations have been harshly repressed by the security forces. Official figures report more than 400 arrests and three deaths. Among the victims, two young people shot by agents in Lqliaa, near Agadir, as they were allegedly trying to attack a brigade of the Royal Gendarmerie. The response deemed disproportionate by the Moroccan police has led some protesters to consider boycotting the 2025 Africa Cup of Nations scheduled to take place in Morocco, a country of football enthusiasts.

In 2018, the song F’bladi delmouni ("In my country, I was oppressed"), sung by the ultras of Raja, became viral as a cry against corruption and unemployment. As explained by a sociologist from the University of Meknes for Le Monde, "the stadium is their space of existence". For these young people, belonging to an ultra group offers what society refuses them: an identity, protection, a sense of belonging.

The state has always responded with repression to the power of the ultras. Several young people from Raja and Wydad have been sentenced to prison terms of up to fifteen years, and mass arrests have taken place after each episode of protest, whether during the boycott of the national anthem in 2018 or protests against normalization with Israel. Morocco is preparing to show the world an image of modernity with the 2030 World Cup, which it will jointly organize with Spain and Portugal. But the young people expected to fill the stands are already expressing their discontent.