At its appearance King Hassan II demanded that it be banned - without success, although in similar cases the French government had shown itself open to the wishes of friendly leaders.

He describes the background of the conflict over Western Sahara, the power of French banks and corporations in Morocco, the development of the opposition and the uprisings of the impoverished urban population.

In Morocco, "two regimes coexist, as opposite as day and night" Thus there exists a "juridical system organized according to the norms of bourgeois democracy", besides "a pharaonic power".

"Our Friend the King," by Gilles Perrault, is a biography of Hassan II of Morocco and examines cases of torture, killing and political imprisonment said to have been carried out by the Moroccan Government.

Moroccan officials have threatened to end their cooperation agreements with France over this matter, and the French Foreign Minister, Roland Dumas, scheduled a hasty trip to Rabat to meet with Hassan II of Morocco on November 9, 1990, to mend relations.

Morocco's Prime Minister, Azzeddine Laraki, wrote a letter to his French counterpart, Michel Rocard, to denounce a "campaign of denigration" against his Government.

On November 8, 1990, in Paris Danielle Mitterrand met with Khadija Bent Hamdi, the wife of Mohamed Abdelaziz (Sahrawi politician), causing one Moroccan paper to write that she was "throwing oil on the fire."

After his meeting with Hassan II of Morocco on November 9, 1990, Foreign Minister Roland Dumas said that tensions had been reduced and that both sides reiterated their desire to maintain friendly relations.