Morocco’s Azrou college: where the berber elite was forged
Designed under French rule as the cornerstone of a Moroccan ‘Berber policy,’ Azrou college was meant to cultivate a compliant Amazigh elite fluent in French, distanced from nationalist movements in Fès and Rabat, intended to serve colonial administration and military. History had other plans. Its graduates included independence activists, ministers, governors, judges, and thirteen generals. Some served King Mohammed V and Hassan II, while others were swept up in the failed coups of 1971 and 1972. Drawing from Mohamed Benhlal’s essay ‘Le collège d’Azrou: une élite berbère civile et militaire au Maroc, 1927-1959’ (Karthala Editions) and firsthand accounts from former students, we revisit one of modern Morocco’s most remarkable training grounds for elites—and the political ambitions that gave it birth.
