Morocco’s King Mohammed VI on Friday urged a rapid push on reforms to create youth jobs, upgrade public services and tackle regional inequality, with special focus on mountain and oasis areas.
Speaking at the opening of parliament, a week after youth-led protests over health, education and corruption, the king called for “a faster implementation pace and stronger impacts from the next generation of local development programs,” first requested in July. Priorities include job creation for young people alongside “tangible progress in the education and health sectors, as well as local rehabilitation policies,” he said.
The monarch did not address protesters directly but stressed that national flagship projects must align with social programs rather than compete with them. Morocco is a constitutional monarchy in which the king sets strategic direction carried out by an elected government.
Official data put unemployment at 12.8%, with youth joblessness at 35.8% and 19% among graduates. Poverty fell nationally from 11.9% in 2014 to 6.8% in 2024, the statistics agency says, but rates remain higher in mountainous and oasis regions.
Morocco’s population, industry and infrastructure are concentrated in the northwest, leaving other regions more dependent on farming, fisheries and tourism.
Thousands lined the route to parliament as the king—accompanied by his brother and the crown prince—arrived in traditional dress. The same square saw only dozens of protesters on Thursday night after the GenZ 212 movement, a leaderless youth group, said on its Discord channel it would pause demonstrations on Friday out of respect for the monarch.