I. Letter to my Moroccan friends: Sovereignty through achievement and courage
It had been twelve long years, perhaps more, since I last visited Morocco, the country of my heart and memories. The Algerian regime, captive to its hatreds, obsessions and arrogance, had forbidden us from visiting, even from setting foot near it. How I had missed it! But I am no longer Algerian, and Mr. Tebboune, who imprisoned me, dragged me through the mud, stripped me of my Algerian nationality and drove me out of the country simply for speaking of Morocco’s undeniable sovereignty over its own territory, can no longer forbid me anything. I am as free as the wind. I go wherever I please. And so, no sooner had the thought crossed my mind than I was here, in Morocco, a country I love so deeply, respect so profoundly and believe in so passionately. I spent a dozen days here, and they brought me immense joy and fulfillment. My thanks go to my friends at Le360, who made this reunion of love possible and organized it, above all its CEO, Dr. Aziz Daki, and my friend Dr. Karim Serraj.
From the day I arrived in Morocco, in Casablanca, on October 28, 2026, to my return to Paris this November 6, travelling through Rabat, the immaculately kept capital, imperial Fez and the new Dakhla, in Morocco’s far south, where the desert finally meets the Atlantic and looks out towards America, I have seen a country standing tall, healthy and serene, shaping its own history with its own hands and intellect, under the leadership of its King, His Majesty Mohammed VI, loved and respected by his people. The King has understood that, in this new world taking shape at the speed of computers, power cannot be imported, bought or conjured up through patriotic songs. It must be built at home, with one’s own hands, drawing on one’s own genius, lest one disappear like a ghost into a globalization imposed from outside. Everything here speaks of intelligence, determination, confidence and that gracious modesty which is the mark of true greatness. How many countries in the world can claim to be doing better?
What a wonderful journey! I had the privilege of meeting, with immense pride, the professionals leading the country’s astonishingly rapid modernization. I think of Casablanca Finance City (CFC), a hub that has done far more than put up magnificent glass towers: it is building and operating the financial networks that connect Europe and its investors with business opportunities across Africa. I think of the colossal maritime hub rising in Dakhla, which, from 2028, will give African businesses a direct connection to the world. Here is proof that strategic vision, when backed by perseverance, finesse and agility, can ultimately bend reality to its will. I think, too, of the outstanding universities that welcomed me, Mohammed V University in Rabat and the extraordinary Euromed University of Fez, laboratories of innovation where a whole generation of talented young people is being trained in cutting-edge technologies, research and leadership, ready to sustain, magnify and accelerate this extraordinary national drive towards progress and, let us dare to say it, power.
«If we wanted to measure the true worth of a state, we would judge its success not by the riches the earth happens to bestow upon it, but by what its people create through hard work and the ability to look ahead and succeed.»
— Boualem Sansal
Morocco has no oil with which to swagger about and lecture others. What it has is human talent, brilliant and multilingual, and that makes a world of difference. Especially when, as Morocco has done, a country embraces complexity, because the modern world is complex, along with integration and synergy: safeguarding its territorial integrity, strengthening and diversifying its economy, extending its diplomatic influence through law and art, without becoming mired in the belligerent ruts of supposedly revolutionary states that do little more than stir up dust and scatter it elsewhere. If we wanted to measure the true worth of a state, we would judge its success not by the riches the earth happens to bestow upon it, but by what its people create through hard work and the ability to look ahead and succeed. Nature gave us eyes to look forward, not backward, and a memory so that we might never forget where we came from. As the philosopher Gilles Deleuze put it, “There is no bridge, only the leap.” That captures Morocco perfectly. The country could make it its motto. Surely that deserves a Nobel Peace Prize. Incidentally, the time has come to award that prize to countries, so that it might honor entire peoples, forever overlooked when honors are handed out, rather than personalities and institutions alone. Anyone can attest to this: Morocco has never waged war except against war itself, and has always found the means and the patience to defeat it through peace. I appeal to the Nobel Foundation and urge it to award the first such prize to Morocco.
II. Letter to my French compatriots: A giant gone astray, no longer among the great powers
I return to Paris this November 6, and the contrast is brutal. How heartbreaking to see this great nation, once a laboratory of universal consciousness and the driving force behind the Enlightenment, now sinking into a dark crisis that bears an uncanny resemblance to the sinking of the Titanic.
The France of the Enlightenment, of universal ideals and soaring eloquence, seems to have lost the thread of its own story. It no longer seeks to understand and shape the world. Instead, it suffers the shocks the world delivers, groping its way down narrow side roads in the hope of evading urgent challenges and responsibilities. Public debate has been taken hostage by feverish self-appointed prosecutors, devotees of insubordination, decadence and ideological chaos.
When a country that was once a beacon hands over its intellectual life to political adventurers and reduces its principles to petty electoral scolding, it ceases to be a great power and becomes a vassal state, a fractured kingdom. Can France recover? Of course not. The machinery is broken. It will never find it in itself to repudiate its past betrayals of principle or settle the bill for decades of culpable complacency.
«It is time to go home. This first journey to Morocco has given me more than I could ever have hoped for. I am so happy for the country: it has reinvented itself and found the path to the right reforms and the keys to genuine success.»
— Boualem Sansal
III. Letter to my Algerian friends: The prison of state lies and misdirected bluster
To my Algerian friends, I will speak plainly. The military-bureaucratic system that has confiscated the people’s sovereignty has driven Algeria into a complete dead end. To keep the population under the state of exception that allows it to tighten its grip on power and plunder ever more, it endlessly stages the farce of a foreign enemy massed along the borders and the absurd spectacle of an enemy within, poisoning wells and setting forests ablaze. It is the perfect smokescreen for concealing the misery into which the country is sinking and keeping the oil revenues for the petty military strongmen of the ANP, the People’s National Army, which claims to be the worthy heir of the ALN, the National Liberation Army, once comfortably based in Morocco, resting in the cool shade of palm trees, far from the thunder of the real war being fought in Algeria.
The atmosphere of war deliberately maintained against Morocco, amounting to an almost openly declared war given the frenzy of these petty military strongmen stockpiling mountains of weapons across the country and beyond, serves only one real purpose: to terrorize the people, wear them down through a permanent state of apprehension and force them into submission. From morning till night, they are bombarded with talk of sovereignty, delivered through bombastic slogans and televised military exercises, something like Star Wars against the locusts. Do the Moroccan generals realize what awaits them? They will be wiped out the moment Mr. Tebboune gives the order. Cue the music: The Sounds of Silence. Free Algerians know what sovereignty really means: the honor of speaking truthfully, the freedom of every individual to think, the courage to undertake new ventures and a nation that values its young people enough to prepare them for the difficult task of taking over, preserving continuity while bringing renewal.
It is time to go home. This first journey to Morocco has given me more than I could ever have hoped for. I am so happy for the country: it has reinvented itself and found the path to the right reforms and the keys to genuine success. A success story that could, and should, serve as an example to others. I will return as often as I can, to see what comes next and celebrate its progress with friends.
I am saddened for France, trapped in its own endless stammering, unable to hold on to anything, whether on the right or the left, for it has lost both arms and strayed so far from its original people that it can scarcely hope to find them again.
And I despair more than ever for Algeria, condemned to life imprisonment under a regime of death.
