After a week of widespread protests in Morocco led by the “Generation Z” movement demanding better health and education and an end to corruption, King Mohammed VI of Morocco called for accelerating reforms aimed at creating job opportunities for young people, improving public services, and paying more attention to rural areas.
Moroccan King Calls for Accelerating Reforms in the Country
Moroccan King Mohammed VI called on Friday, October 10, for accelerating reforms aimed at creating job opportunities for young people, improving public services, and paying greater attention to rural areas.
The king made this call in a speech he delivered at the opening of the final session of Parliament this year (2025), following a week of widespread protests led by young people demanding better health and education and an end to corruption. The King said, “Social justice and combating spatial disparities are not just an empty slogan or a temporary priority whose importance may decline depending on circumstances. Rather, we consider them a strategic direction to which all stakeholders must adhere and a crucial challenge that should govern our various development policies.”
In his speech, the King of Morocco said, “We expect a faster pace and a stronger impact from the new generation of the territorial development program that we have instructed the government to prepare, within the framework of a win-win relationship between urban and rural areas.” He added that this concerns, in particular, “encouraging local initiatives and economic activities, providing job opportunities for young people, promoting the education and health sectors, and rehabilitating the territorial area.” The Moroccan monarch emphasized “giving special attention to the most vulnerable regions, taking into account their specificities and the nature of their needs, especially mountainous and oases regions.”
Generation Z 212 Movement Announces Suspension of Protests in Morocco
The Moroccan youth movement Generation Z 212 announced on Saturday the temporary suspension of its protests, a move it described as “strategic.” This comes a day after King Mohammed VI’s annual address to the Moroccan Parliament on Friday, without directly referring to the protests or the movement’s demands. This also comes after two weeks of demonstrations that have swept several cities, demanding reforms in the health and education sectors and improved social conditions.
The Generation Z 212 movement said in a statement that this weekend’s pause is “a strategic step aimed at strengthening organization and coordination and ensuring that the next phase is more effective and impactful, far from any improvisation or external exploitation.”
The movement’s statement emphasized that the youth’s demands are “firm, foremost among them holding the corrupt accountable and holding the government responsible for the deteriorating social and economic conditions.”
The statement indicated that the movement will later announce a new call for demonstrations against the government and against “all corrupt individuals who obstruct the achievement of the Moroccan people’s demands for dignity, justice, and accountability,” according to the statement. The movement announced it would not organize protests on Friday out of respect for the king and his speech, but stressed that this did not mean “a retreat from demands or an abandonment of popular pressure.”
Royal Speech: Avoiding Direct Confrontation
The movement’s statement came just hours after the annual address delivered by Moroccan King Mohammed VI, marking the opening of the first session of the fifth legislative year before Parliament in the capital, Rabat, in the presence of his son, Crown Prince Moulay El Hassan.
During his speech, the king called for accelerating the pace of development in the kingdom, emphasizing the need to “provide job opportunities for young people, improve public services, pay greater attention to rural areas,” and devote special attention to the most vulnerable regions.
Read More: Morocco Protests: 4 Days of Public Anger – Discover the Full Story
Although Mohammed VI did not directly address the Generation Z protests or their demands to dismiss the government, he nonetheless highlighted the importance of priority issues, most notably “encouraging local initiatives and economic activities, providing job opportunities for young people, and promoting the health and education sectors,” as he put it.
