French language in Morocco

[1] French has no officially recognised status in Morocco,[2] but is often used for business, diplomacy, and government,[3] serving as a lingua franca with non-Moroccans and non-Arabs.

[12][13] Due to these restrictions, the Moroccan journalist Muhammad Ibn al-Hassan al-Wazzaani published L'Action du Peuple (The Work of the People), the first francophone newspaper published by the Moroccan Nationalist Movement in the area under the control of the French Protectorate in Morocco, in Fes on August 4, 1933.

In the early 1960s the Moroccan government began the Arabisation process, in which the Istiqlal leader Allal al-Fassi played a major role.

[16] Under Hassan II, Arabisation of the humanities was instrumentalised to suppress critical thought—replacing the subject of "Sociology" with "Islamic Thought," for example[17]—in a move which Susan Gilson Miller described as a "crude and obvious attempt to foster a more conservative atmosphere within academia and to dampen enthusiasm for the radicalising influences filtering in from Europe.

"[11] Rouchdy further explained that the language had been "maintained for instrumental purposes and for building contacts with the West in general.

Ennaji wrote, "In this context, one can understand the important status of French, whose colonial connotations have been erased or at least drastically reduced by independence.

"[11] Despite the legacy of colonialism, according to Rouchdy, "French is still widely appreciated by both the ruling elite and the general public.

"[11] Ennaji said "most Moroccans know that Standard Arabic does not meet all their societal needs and that a European language is necessary for the transfer of ideas and technology, and for communication with the world at large.

Reviews of artwork and art journal articles mostly were published in French, while some newspaper coverage of gallery exhibits was in Arabic.