Hassan II

Hassan II (Arab: rear RTL الحسنالثاني), (born with Reduction the July 9th 1929 and deceased the July 23rd 1999) was the king of the Morocco. Its reign lasted 38 years (1961 - 1999).

The crown prince

He received at the Palais Royal the first lesson of Koranic science . After academic works with Reduction and Bordeaux (France), the king obtained, in 1951, the Diploma of Higher learning in public Droit.

The Hassan young person was very early initiated with the mysteries of the capacity and the diplomacy. In 1943, it assisted, at the sides of his/her father, the Conférence of Anfa where it met Winston Churchill and Franklin Roosevelt. This conference of Allied was taken place with the day before of the release of Europe. In 1944, it took part in the drafting of Proclamation of independence at the sides of the representatives of the National movement. Very young person already, prince Moulay Hassan militated actively within the imperial college, hearth of the militancy and Moroccan nationalism. In 1947, the prince took part in the historical voyage of Mohammed V with Tangier, and attended the speech of his/her father who claimed the independence of the country, his unit, his territorial integrity and his adhesion with the Arab Ligue. It launched itself a call to the young people inviting them to mobilize itself for the release. In 1952, it takes part in the speech from the throne, considered as the charter of Moroccan nationalism against protectorate.

The following year, it is exiled with the Corsica sultan in , then with Madagascar, before dividing, in November 1955, its triumphal return in the kingdom. The independence acquired in 1956, his/her father appoints it chief of staff of the royal Armed forces - it represses, for this reason, the rising of the Rif - before proclaiming it officially crown prince the July 9th 1957.

The March 3rd 1961, after the death of Mohammed V, Moulay Hassan was proclaimed king of Morocco.

The reign

The transformation is immediate, the absolute seizure of power too. In December 1962, Hassan II fact of adopting a Constitution to measure, badly accepted by the political parties - the king, commander of the believers, are an “inviolable and crowned” personality. A wave of repression falls down then on the left opposition, followed, after the riots of Casablanca in 1965, by ten years of state of exception. In October of this year, the charismatic chief of the left, Mehdi Ben Barka, is removed into full Paris and secretly assassinated.

In same time it continues the unification of the kingdom and the consolidation of its independence and its territorial integrity: release of the province of Tarfaya (1958) and of the province of Sidi Ifni (1969).

For Hassan II the danger will come then from the army. The July 10th 1971, a first attempt at Coup d'etat makes more than one hundred dead with the royal palace of Skhirat. The August 16th 1972, it is the general Mohamed Oufkir who assembles an air attack against the plane of the sovereign whereas this one returned of a voyage to France. Oufkir, according to the official thesis, commits suicide. Each time, Hassan II escapes from it by miracle. It will be necessary to wait three more years so that the king finds finally an area of agreement with his opposition, his army and, undoubtedly, its people.

In November 1975, the “green Marche” organized in direction of the old Spanish colony of the the Western Sahara provides him the occasion to remake the unit around its person, organizing, amongst other things, a kind of worship of its personality. Its portrait then appears in all the country, on the avenues, in the tradesmen who can be worried by the police force if it is not well in obviousness. But it will be only at the end of the Eighties, after a new series of riots and the rise in force of Islamism, that its mode will slowly start to be liberalized. The constitutional reforms of 1992 and 1996 thus attenuate the absolutist character of monarchy. In February 1998, finally, Hassan II names an opponent of always, the Socialist Abderrahman El Yousoufi, at the post of First minister in charge to assure “alternation”.

Frightening expert, never as at ease as in the play complexes regional and international diplomacy, this king shining to which nothing was prohibited - especially not pleasures of a terribly expensive life - decided on all behind the walls of its palates, true prohibited cities.

Modernistic and traditional, feudal and politicking veined, fine strategist reconciling Occident and the East, but so able of arbitrary and extreme hardness, Hassan II left with his son Mohammed VI structured and linked Morocco. But also a kingdom where the social disparities and the inequalities remain shouting. Contrasted and disputed, its heritage is heavy.

External bonds

Hassan II

Random links: