Ahmad 
Most Moroccans supported their country’s refusal to provide aid by France after the devastating earthquake that occurred on September 8th last year in the province of El Haouz.
A new poll on the quake, published on Saturday, showed that 82% of those polled expressed “strong approval” or “approval” of Morocco’s position in refusing assistance from some countries, such as France.
The study, prepared by the Moroccan Institute for Policy Analysis, involved 2,000 people, whose data were collected between October and December of 2023, aged 18 years and above, and 46% of whom were female, and whose results showed a prevailing sense of sovereignty and independence among Moroccans in decision-making, especially when it comes to international aid partnerships.
During the earthquake, Morocco did not ask France for help, sparking controversy at the time. This refusal was interpreted as a “political sign of tension between the two countries”, while former French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin refused to link it to tensions.
The study showed that 42% of the population of the Marrakech region are satisfied with the government’s handling of the Haouz earthquake crisis, while 16% are not satisfied at all, while 77% nationally confirmed their satisfaction with the government’s handling of the crisis, with 46% expressing their satisfaction with the crisis, 31% expressing satisfaction to some extent, and 22% expressing dissatisfaction.
The Haouz earthquake, which occurred on September 8 last year, killed 2,960 people, injured 6,125 others, and destroyed residential buildings and roads, as the earthquake recorded 7 degrees on the Richter scale, and its reverberations reached different cities such as Agadir, Rabat, Casablanca, and even cities in the north.