---

Johan Leman, 2 February 2024

The phenomenon is not new: children or grandchildren of migrants, born in a host country (which should actually be their country), who at some point, having grown up young asult, return to the country of their parents or grandparents to start a new life there. One experienced it in the 1990s with people of Spanish origin returning to Spain; and from Germany highly schooled Germans of Moroccan origin have more than once  left for Morocco. The French-language Moroccan magazine from Casablanca, Tel Quel, devotes an article to it, reprinted in ‘Le Courrier international’. The insta site “J’ai décidé de m’installer au Maroc” has 152,400 members.

Officially, 5 million Moroccans (i.e. 15% of the entire population) live in the diaspora. Not counting those not registered, it could be just under 6 million Moroccans in the diaspora. Note that Moroccans who have become Belgian also remain included in these figures, due to dual nationality. The reasons given by returnees are: the racism in the country of their birth (push factor), and as pull factors : the climate (the sun), and often the idea that they have a real chance of building an interesting career in Morocco, for instance as an entrepreneur.

It is an interesting phenomenon. While Moroccans are still attempting to cross over to Europe, one sometimes sees successful Euro-Moroccans returning to Morocco. The big lesson is, one has to be careful with all kinds of predictions about how migrations will evolve in the future. One may be a Belgo-Moroccan, marry a Morocco-Moroccan, see the children be born in Morocco and assist to their coming back to live in Belgium. Globalisation allows movements in many directions.

Back