- 1 A comparative analysis of this group of French retirees and that of Moroccans or Franco-Moroccans r (...)
1The international migration of retirees has given rise to several destinations that show well-known migratory areas in a new light, or more precisely in a new direction, from the “North” to the “South”: United States nationals and Canadians in Mexico (Bantman-Masum, 2013; Rojas et al., 2014) and Central America (Benson, 2013), Japanese in South-East Asia (Ono, 2009), British in the Mediterranean region (King et al., 2000), Germans in Turkey (Südas and Mutluer, 2006), etc. French retirees tend to head for Portugal (Plard and Vuaillat, 2018), Spain, Senegal (Sall, 2009; Quashie, 2016) and Morocco (Escher and Petermann, 2013; Le Bigot, 2016 and 2017; Pinel, 2020, 2021 and 2022). This article focuses on the latter destination, presenting the results of surveys of French people living at least part of the year in the Souss-Massa region, particularly in and around Agadir, the regional capital. The article looks specifically at French retirees with no family ties to Morocco,1 with the exception of a small number who were born there under the colonial Protectorate. When they migrate to Morocco, either seasonally (referred to as “winterers”) or on a year-round basis (referred to as “residents”), they are part of a residential and recreational project linked to the quest for a better quality of life and generational and national sociability abroad.
- 2 See, for example, the programme of the conference “Des migrations internationales privilégiées?” (P (...)
2As an emerging field of research in France, the study of privileged migration is largely dominated by the analysis of migration linked to work or education.2 Our study focuses on retirees, in line with the abundant research that since the 2000s has been grouped under the term “lifestyle migration” (Benson and O’Reilly, 2009). The recent trends in this field of study, which consider the privileged and postcolonial dimensions of such migration, have contributed to structuring our theoretical approach. We also aim to enrich it by strengthening the geographical approach. Our research thus draws on the spatialised perspective that characterises French migration studies (Simon, 2006), and affirms the importance of this new type of “migrant” within this field, following on from the work on Europeans migrating to the South (Bredeloup, 2016), in North Africa (Peraldi and Terrazzoni, 2016a).
- 3 The notion of race is used as a social construct situated in time and space, on which the dynamics (...)
3The aim of this article is to explore the migratory spatialities of these French retirees in the Souss-Massa region, in terms of the spatial dimension of their migratory experiences. More specifically, it looks at how space reveals, and even reinforces, positions of power in migratory situations. Mirroring the constrained migratory spatialities that are frequently analysed, we put forward the strong hypothesis of the “privileged” nature of these spatialities, which are little studied in lifestyle migration studies. The analysis is based on the link between the notion of privilege and that of appropriation of space (Ripoll and Veschambre, 2005) in order to understand the mechanisms that lead retired French citizens in Morocco to build, with relative ease, a home and a comfortable lifestyle in the Agadir region. These privileged spatialities are considered on different spatial scales, from the domestic space to the Souss-Massa region. We consider the ways in which space is appropriated in both symbolic and material terms. The privileged position is seen as relative, even fragile, in relation to the many forms of power relationships between the actors involved. We therefore examine how the migration of retired French people to Agadir presents forms of material and symbolic appropriation of space based on privileges situated in the destination and in constant negotiation, linking in particular nationality, race3 and class in a postcolonial context.
4While many lifestyle migration studies focus on the triggers behind the migration project, research into lifestyles in the destinations emphasises, from a mainly sociological and anthropological perspective, the social microcosms that are established and the relative absence of links with local society (e.g. Casado-Díaz, 2012). Our results shed light on these relationships between migrants and their destination by highlighting both the diversity of forms of spatial appropriation, particularly in relation to the heterogeneity of the group studied, and the importance of the chosen, though often negotiated, nature of this spatial appropriation. The relative privilege that the group enjoys in their situation is constructed by the link between French nationality, the relatively privileged class when considered in the Moroccan context, whiteness, but also the status of retiree. After presenting the conceptual framework, the context and the survey method, the results are discussed on three scales of understanding of these privileged modes of spatial appropriation. 1) On the scale of the migratory field linking France and Morocco (Pinel, 2020), the migration studied is characterised by privileged access to the desired destination, linked to the migrants’ nationality. This access makes it possible to formulate a migration project that can be described as spatial optimisation of retirement, based on paradisiacal imaginaries of the destination. 2) On the scale of domestic spaces, the exclusive use of certain segregated residential spaces is a source of tension within the French group. Privilege is expressed in the possibility of choosing the degree of mixing/segregation of the space in which migrants settle. 3) On the scale of urban and coastal areas, the practices of French retirees put them near the resources of the territory, with autonomous use of it and an advantageous position, albeit variable depending to their social affiliations, in the negotiation for the appropriation of coveted spaces. These privileged uses of space make possible this lifestyle, this way of life, at the heart of their migration project.
5The study of retirement migration (King et al., 1998) refers largely to the broader study of lifestyle migrants, initially defined as: “Relatively affluent individuals, moving either part-time or full-time, permanently or temporarily, to places which, for various reasons, signify for the migrants something loosely defined as quality of life” (Benson and O’Reilly, 2009: 621). This notion is close to that of “amenity migration” (Glorioso and Moss, 2012), translated as “migration de style de vie” in the Quebec context (Ibrahim and Tremblay, 2017) and sometimes as “migrations d’agrément” in the French context (Martin et al., 2012). Our study contributes to raising awareness of this field in France, to developing a spatial perspective on these issues, and to affirming the value, in geography, of postcolonial and intersectional approaches used more widely within studies of privileged migration.
6Initially influenced by research on the arrival of the British in the French countryside (Benson, 2011), research on lifestyle migration has gradually focused on origin-destination pairs characterised by a significant economic differential, or even a past colonial relationship. This led Croucher (2012) to consider that the specificity of these international mobilities lay in their “privileged” nature. The founders of this field, Benson and O’Reilly, who in their latest work draw comparisons between their studies in Malaysia and Panama (2018), explore the way in which privilege is structured and experienced on a daily basis by lifestyle migrants. Our research is part of this theoretical approach, defining privilege as an advantage enjoyed by a group, and considering the value of the notion when it is not used in a fixed way, but rather in a multidimensional, relational and contextual way. While the intersectional approach initially made it possible to think about the interconnection of forms of oppression, it can be just as useful for thinking about positions of advantage, which reflect social differentiation (Bilge, 2010). The multiple dimensions of privilege based on race, social class, age, religion or gender are interpreted in relation to other relevant groups in a given context. The value of the multidimensional notion of privilege in the study of migration lies in considering how it is maintained, strengthened or weakened in the changed context created by migration (Le Bigot, 2021). The dynamic nature of privilege would seem to make it more appropriate than the notion of inequality to capture these intersecting and contextual power relationships. We draw on recent research on the links between migration and whiteness (Lundström, 2014; Cosquer et al., 2022) to consider the interconnection between social relations of class, and in particular social relations of race, in understanding the new positions of French retirees in Morocco.
7The colonial history linking France and Morocco calls for consideration of the postcolonial dimension of this migration. Peraldi and Terrazzoni (2016b) emphasise that the mobilities of colonisers, then coopérants (French technician or teacher, in particular soldiers from the contingent, placed at the disposal of certain overseas countries as part of cooperation programmes), and then employees of French companies in Morocco have had in common mechanisms of protection and separation from local society. They consider that the recent migration by French nationals to Morocco is part of a new dynamic, more characterised by informality. Made up of retirees, the group studied should also be seen in the context of leisure-based mobilities, particularly tourism. According to Berriane (2002), the tourism demand in Morocco existed under French colonisation, and Boujrouf (2005) argues that the Moroccan tourism project was initiated by the French. This leads us to consider the value of postcolonial studies, which have developed since the 1980s to reflect on the legacy of the colonial period for contemporary societies in terms of practices and representations. This field of study, which is partly marginalised or contested in France (Boukhris and Peyvel, 2019), shows, for example, the strong contribution of colonial discourses to the tourist imaginaries, particularly through the process of exoticisation (Staszak, 2008). What Minca and Borghi refer to as “colonial nostalgia” (2009) helps us to understand how tourism is staged in Morocco, as well as the way in which the medina of Marrakesh is treated as an architectural heritage site by the French people who settle there (Escher and Petermann, 2013). More broadly, this postcolonial approach, by examining the historical constructs of East and West and the relations of domination that connect them, is linked in a relevant way to the notion of privilege, in line with recent research on “Western privilege” (Le Renard, 2019). Finally, using this approach in our study is an extension of the numerous studies inspired by the French colonial context, looking at colonial power relations (Fanon, 2002), their racial dimension and their continuity through immigration from former colonised territories to the former mainland (Sayad, 2006; Guénif-Souilamas, 2010; Hajjat, 2012). In this context, our article examines the place of French retirees, identified as “white”, in a Moroccan society marked both by the French Protectorate, which ended in 1956, and by the large-scale Moroccan immigration to France that followed (Pinel, 2020).
8Our efforts to theorise using the notion of privilege and the postcolonial approach are linked to our deliberate inclusion of the group studied within migration studies (Le Bigot, 2021). This field, particularly in the French-speaking world, is marked by a spatial dimension (Simon, 2006) which leads us to offer a relatively original geographical approach to this phenomenon. Although space is present in terms such as “spatialities”, “place” and “geographies” in the field of lifestyle migration, it is rarely the subject of problematisation and is often limited to the locations of the phenomenon (Casado-Díaz, 2012). Halfacree (2014) emphasises that, in general, the places of lifestyle migrants are approached through the prism of the imaginaries they provoke, to the detriment of an understanding of the spatial processes at work. The work by Janoschka and Haas (2014) is one of the first to examine “contested spatialities” in destination spaces (Ibid.: 6). Space appears to reveal power relationships, but the spatial dimension is still found mainly in terms of locations. Looking more broadly at studies of privileged migration, a large body of research on expatriates analyses their “social bubbles” (Cohen, 1977; Fechter and Walsh, 2010). While some analyse residential segregation (Cosquer, 2020), or the practices of everyday space (Duplan, 2016), the production of this “entre-soi” (communal exclusivity) is mainly studied through the complex identification of social boundaries (Quashie, 2016; Le Renard, 2019). Some geographers have worked on the contribution of highly skilled migrants to the production of global cities (Beaverstock, 2005). Our hypothesis concerning “privileged migratory spatialities” is fully in line with a social geography approach that examines the spatial dimension of social processes, and more specifically, how social actors normalise and perpetuate privileges by using space (Winddance Twine and Gardener, 2013). We choose to use the concept of “appropriation of space” (Ripoll and Veschambre, 2005) to understand the processes underpinning these privileged spatialities. We consider modes of appropriation in both material terms (exclusive or autonomous use of the space and control over it) and symbolic terms (familiarisation, attachment and appropriation of the identity of the places).
9Our study on the retirement of Europeans in Morocco looked at its various forms: main residence in Morocco, alternating residence between France and Morocco, motor-homing for four to six months of the year in Morocco. While this diversity makes it impossible to produce stable figures, it does enable us to identify the Souss-Massa region as central. A partial reflection of the French presence in Morocco, the number of French nationals registered with the consulates was 30,003 in 2005 and 54,043 in 2017. The district of Agadir accounts for the largest proportion of French nationals aged sixty or over in Morocco. Of the nearly 5,000 registered in 2017, 42.4% were aged sixty or over, well ahead of Marrakesh and Rabat with 19.9% and 25.4% respectively of French people in this age bracket. This regional particularity has become more pronounced since the mid-2000s (see Figure 1). Retired motor-homers stay in Morocco on a tourist visa (three months, renewable once), which makes it impossible to count them. Viallon (2012) speaks of “thousands of seasonal migrant motor-homers”, and several of the actors interviewed in the tourism sector spoke of tens of thousands of motor-homers entering Morocco each year until 2019 for a period of several months. This French presence should be seen in the context of the high level of tourism in Agadir and the Souss-Massa region, linked to its sunny climate, its coastal location and the major land-use planning policies which, after the earthquake that struck in 1960, gradually made it one of Morocco’s leading tourist resorts (Boujrouf, 2005).
Figure 1: Evolution of Registrations at the Agadir Consulate by Age
Interpretation: In 2007, 2,500 people were registered at the Agadir consulate. Of these, 29% were aged sixty or over and 71% under sixty.
Credit: J. Pinel, 2020.
Source: Data provided by the Agadir consulate, 2017.
10More specifically, the article is based on data from two geography theses (Le Bigot, 2017; Pinel, 2020). By cross-referencing these data, we are able to document the phenomenon observed over six years, from 2014 to 2019, and cover a broad spectrum of respondents and observation locations (cf. Map 1). In addition to the main observations in Agadir and in several villages along the Atlantic coast, observations were carried out in campsites and a gated community. The first survey carried out in 2014-2015 (Le Bigot, 2017) led to the collection of questionnaires from 112 French winterers residing in Morocco for between four and six months a year. The questionnaires focused on their mobility during working life and retirement and were extended through twenty-eight interviews and twenty-two maps of daily practices in Agadir. This article is based on the qualitative results of these questionnaires, supplemented by all the other field materials as well as a corpus of seventeen articles published between 2005 and 2019 in a variety of French newspapers, dealing with both seasonal migration and long-term settlements (Le Bigot, 2017). In the second survey carried out between 2017 and 2019 (Pinel, 2020), biographical interviews were conducted with sixty-one French retirees living in Morocco all year round or making regular return trips. The survey focused on residential and family trajectories, family networks, housing and daily spatial practices. In both surveys, retirees were met and interviewed directly where they lived or worked in Morocco, as well as identified through associations and by word of mouth. The surveys also involved interviews with local stakeholders involved with these groups (tourism sector actors of varying status, real estate agents, shopkeepers, etc.). This article sets out to analyse the phenomenon before it was seriously disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic. It provides a set of results on which to base future research into post-crisis reconfigurations.
Map 1: Survey Sites in Morocco
Credit: Base map: dmaps.com; Design and production: B. Le Bigot and J. Pinel, 2023 (based on Pinel, 2020: 103).
Sources: Field surveys, B. Le Bigot and J. Pinel, 2014-2019.
11The status of retiree and the destination of the Souss-Massa region are two features specific to our study that add a new dimension to knowledge about French people in Morocco, which has hitherto focused on heritage destinations and tourism entrepreneurship. In addition to research on working French people, some of whom are the descendants of immigrants, investing in Morocco as a land of opportunity, a great deal of work has been done on the medinas of Marrakesh, Essaouira and Fez, and their gentrification under the influence of the Europeans who take up residence there (Berriane, 2002; Kurzac-Souali, 2011; Escher and Petermann, 2013). The relationship between the gentrification of old town centres in the “South” and lifestyle migration has been well established, in Morocco and elsewhere (Foulds, 2014; Hayes and Zaban, 2020). As a result of the earthquake that largely destroyed the city in 1960, Agadir has no medina and few heritage attractions. As retirees, the members of the group studied had no entrepreneurial objectives, and their migration projects were mainly based on heliotropism and the lower cost of living.
- 4 An imperfect summary, due to its conciseness, of our perception of the respondents during the surve (...)
12This leads to the identification of French retirees in the Souss-Massa with diverse social characteristics, more working-class than in other regions, in connection with the many ways in which they have settled in the area (see Table 1). There is more data on winterers because of the questionnaire survey, but a similar number of interviews were conducted with residents and winterer. Motor-homers are the only group in which blue-collar workers are the most numerous, although the other socio-professional categories are also well represented. There are few civil servants, while shopkeepers and private sector salaried workers are well represented. Of the seventy-five couples (all heterosexual), fifteen single women and eight single men interviewed, the average age was seventy. Four Franco-Moroccan couples were interviewed, and four people were born to French parents (or Spanish parents in the case of one person) in Morocco, but left the country at the end of the Protectorate. Apart from the Moroccan spouses, all the retirees we met identified themselves as white.4
Table 1: Socio-Professional Breakdown of the 173 Retirees Interviewed According to the Type of Presence in Morocco and Place of Residence
Interpretation: The table shows the sum of the data for the 112 retirees in the first survey and the sixty-one retirees in the second survey.
Source: Survey data (Le Bigot, 2017; Pinel, 2020).
“The quality of incarnate individuals who move around leads us to distinguish between those who will suffer limitations on their mobility and possibly bodily restraint and those who will enjoy a favourable, unconditional movement regime, freeing their bodies from any legal or spatial hindrance.” (Guénif-Souilamas, 2010)
13In France, as in most Western countries, retirement is seen not only as a means of subsistence at the end of life, but has acquired a social value associated with rest after several decades of work (Albou, 1999). The baby-boom generation is the symbol of these hedonistic aspirations for retirement. Considered to be more individualistic (Putnam, 2000) and more mobile (Bonvalet and Ogg, 2009) than previous generations, they see retirement as a way of making the most of free time in a society that is increasingly focused on leisure and mobility. The meanings given to the project of temporary or permanent migration to Morocco are, in the respondents’ discourse, largely oriented towards this imaginary of retirement as a time to “make the most” of free time, and this objective is given concrete expression in an approach of “optimisation” of the place of residence (Pinel, 2021 and 2022). The geographical break at the end of working life provides a social break from work-related life (Blanché, 2014), and the characteristics associated with Morocco make it possible to envisage an “optimal” break. Interviews with retirees mention the climate and lower cost of living as the main attractions, followed by taxation (for residents), seaside resorts and landscapes, and Moroccan culture. These are the main motivations observed in retirement migration, whatever the migrants’ nationalities and countries of destination (King et al., 2000; Benson and Osbaldiston, 2014). As French nationality gives access to a very large number of destinations, the choice is often expressed in very rational and comparative discourse, in which Morocco is presented as the ideal country, as in the case of Loïc:
“Morocco, you see, is an obvious choice. Look: Spain and Portugal aren’t very warm in winter and they don’t speak French, so for us, who only speak French... Tunisia was a good compromise, but given what happened in 2011, it’s less inviting! The West Indies, Mauritius and Thailand are all very far away, so we’d never have any family to visit, and it’s not the same price to get back. Turkey might work for us, but it’s not very close either and they don’t really speak French. There’s Senegal too, but it’s the same problem: tickets are expensive because it’s not nearby and it’s not as popular with tourists as Morocco.” (Loïc, aged seventy-four, French, winterer, living with a partner, former SNCF manager)
14This privileged access to migration is illustrated not only by the possibility of settling permanently abroad, but also by the possibility of leading a lifestyle combining several places of residence, and their various seasonal advantages, in the manner of winterers.
- 5 The report can be viewed on Inathèque (audiovisual archive of the Institut national de l’audiovisue (...)
15The projects are strongly influenced by the media coverage of the phenomenon and the construction of imaginaries of the destination that are both modelled on, and produce, the expectations of retired people. The symbolic appropriation of places, paving the way for material appropriation, is thus facilitated by identification with a community that is already established. For several of the people we interviewed, the project came about after watching a televised news report on the France 2 channel in December 2005.5 The corpus of press articles analysed shows a strong emphasis on the domestic spatial scale, that of “home”, protected from Moroccan society, well connected to Europe, and evoking measured exoticism (Le Bigot, 2017). Whether in articles about motor-homing or property investment, the lexical field of paradise and dreams is omnipresent in describing the living environment of these retirees, as in this extract about a gated community:
- 6 Deguen Florence (2009) “Ce sera mon petit paradis sur terre!” (It’s going to be my little paradise (...)
“Les Palmiers, the azure swimming pool, the fully equipped kitchen... Robert’s glasses are misting up. For the moment, it’s just a show home that smells of fresh paint. But in a year’s time... This debonair sixty-year-old is already imagining himself drinking pastis, floating on an inflatable, his dog Betty snoozing under the pergola. He pauses, his voice catching with emotion: ‘In a year’s time, this will be my own little paradise on earth!’”6
16Beyond the comfortable bubble, the paradise motif also refers to the relational dimension and corresponds to a “communal sociability” (Amirou, 2008), a space that encourages social exchanges structured by shared beliefs and objectives. In this case, the sociability is between French retirees who are white and generally in heterosexual relationships. It is with this spatial imaginary of their destination that a variety of projects are constructed.
- 7 In French the expression “en sauvage” was used by motor-homers to describe setting up camp outside (...)
17Simon (2010) defines the migration project as the prelude to the journey, both the mental representation of elsewhere and the concrete preparation for departure. From intention to strategic action, it is part of the process of familiarising oneself with the place, and preparing for the material appropriation of the destination. The projects of the retirees interviewed were varied, reflecting the diversity of their social backgrounds: motor-homing on a campsite or “in the wild”,7 the least expensive option; buying a property or renting a flat or house in Agadir, in one of the coastal towns or in a gated community. Although social positions varied prior to departure, almost all of the people surveyed owned or had owned their own home in France. A small number of people who live in motorhomes all year round had difficult professional and family experiences (unemployment, accidents at work, widowhood, divorce) and were in a very precarious situation. Although motor-homing is practised by retired people from the most working-class backgrounds, it is also chosen by more affluent couples, with the associated lifestyle playing a key role in the project and often being tried out before retirement. One-third of retirees living in apartments or houses choose to rent, and two-thirds to buy, with a high concentration of the most privileged classes in gated communities. The heterogeneity of these projects can also be seen in the relationship formed with Morocco over the course of the biographical trajectory. While the generation of retirees we met was characterised by relatively late international tourist mobility during their working lives, the majority had visited Morocco on one or more occasions in a tourist context, giving rise to familiarisation. For eight of the respondents, the colonial experience in the Maghreb left its mark on their childhood, and it can therefore be considered an identity-based appropriation. This was the case for Francine, who was born in Morocco to Spanish parents who were themselves born in Morocco, and grew up there until her teens. She referred to Morocco as “her country”, and saw her retirement migration as a return:
Francine: “So when I retired I decided to come back to Morocco.”
Author: “Had you been back before you retired?”
Francine: “Yes, with my ex-husband. I wanted to see if my country was still my country. And it was still my country! Even if it had changed, it was still my country. I went to Marrakesh. And that’s when I said that when I retired, I’d go back there. That’s when I made the decision. My happy memories of my childhood were in Morocco and all I wanted to do was go back there.” (Francine, aged seventy, French, winterer, single, former hairdresser)
18As has been shown in research into lifestyle migration, the destination chosen is generally viewed in relation to the place of origin, highlighting the improvement in living conditions made possible by spatial mobility. The multiplicity of motivations behind these projects can also be seen at the level of couples: for some women, migration is a way of freeing themselves from certain domestic tasks, by hiring a domestic help, or for the less well-off, by eating out more regularly in restaurants. It is also a way for women winterers to avoid looking after their grandchildren on a regular basis for part of the year, in favour of more exceptional family moments.
19The theme of communal exclusivity has been given particular attention in the field of privileged migration. The survey of a variety of places of residence of retirees in the Souss-Massa region shows that its spatial dynamics, particularly through the exclusive appropriation of certain spaces, crystallise different positions within the group. Between reinforcing and attempting to reduce both racial and social boundaries, these retirees are privileged to be able to choose between spatial segregation and exposure to a certain degree of social mixing. However, this spatial privilege is tempered by the conditions for living together that are imposed locally, sometimes at odds with expectations.
- 8 Interviews conducted by Brenda Le Bigot in 2015 with retirees who own property at Club Évasion had (...)
20Some of France’s most socially advantaged retirees seek to settle in an exceptionally comfortable setting. The exclusivity of this setting for the French retired community reinforces its attractiveness. This chosen segregation is most evident in gated communities, and takes a less institutionalised form in campsites. Gated communities represent a growing model of segregation (Bonvalet and Dureau, 2000). Closely linked to their security function, these residences sometimes have a strong social exclusivity function. Residences for retirees contribute to a model in which the elderly population isolates itself from the rest of the population (Cutillas Orgillés, 2009; Le Goix, 2001), creating, in their most imposing forms, veritable “enclaves of retirees” (Billard et al., 2005). In the case of international retirement migration, a dual segregation takes place, linked to age and nationality. In Morocco, the reality has not reached the gigantic scale of US projects, but property developers have understood the economic interest of the migration of retirees. The “Morocco Rivieira” project in the Tan-Tan region in the south of the Souss-Massa region, which was initiated in 2011 but ultimately remained at a standstill, envisaged the creation of a new town for retirees, which would eventually be home to 270,000 international retirees. The less ambitious Club Évasion, located around 130 kilometres south of Agadir, was built on a fourteen-hectare estate overlooking the ocean (see Photograph 1). Enclosed and secure (see Photograph 2), it comprises 220 luxury residences. The majority of residents are French retirees, but an increasing number are Moroccan families who buy the villas from French people who have become disillusioned with the concept.8 As a result of recent problems (legal action against the developer for fraud, closure of shops, lack of property title), a number of villas are without an owner.
Photograph 1: Aerial View of the Club Évasion Gated Community, Isolated from the Nearest Town (Tiznit) by a Thirty-minute Drive
Credit: J. Pinel, 2020.
Photograph 2: Main Entrance to the Club Évasion Residence: Entry is Only Possible at the Request of a Resident
Credit: J. Pinel, 2017.
21Dyar Shemsi, a more recent development closer to Agadir, is located seventy kilometres inland from the regional capital. Created in 2011, it comprises 240 villas spread over twenty-eight hectares of orange groves. It is surrounded by walls with gates at the entrance monitored by a security service that patrols day and night. The villas, ranging in size from eighty to 160 square metres, are fairly luxurious and have gardens of several hundred square metres, with a swimming pool (see Photograph 3). They are 80% occupied by French-speaking retirees, the majority of whom are French. Services are more extensive than at Club Évasion: a restaurant, grocery shop, spa and gym are clustered in the centre of the complex, around a communal swimming pool, boules pitch (see Photograph 4) and communal buildings (meeting rooms, library).
Photograph 3: Garden of a Property in the Dyar Shemsi Residence
Credit: J. Pinel, 2018.
Photograph 4: Boules Pitch in the Communal Area of the Dyar Shemsi Residence
Credit: J. Pinel, 2018.
22In interviews with residents, the security aspect and the possibility of recreating communal exclusivity with a French-speaking community came up regularly:
Author: “So why did you buy here, in Dyar, and not in Agadir, closer to the coast and services?”
Colette: “The fact that it’s a safe place, that it’s considered a bit like a village... Because I’m on my own, I came here on my own, I definitely wouldn’t have come to live in Agadir. It wouldn’t have even occurred to me!” (Colette, aged sixty-five, French, winterer, former accountant)
23Campsites such as the modern Atlantica Parc in Imi Ouaddar, to the north of Agadir, also offer winter motor-homers an environment of protected communal exclusivity. It is based on the reproduction of an exclusive urbanity delimited by perimeter walls, reinforced to the north by a deterrent barrier (see Photograph 5) on the side facing the social housing districts on the plateau. The development incorporates many of the characteristics of an urban space, with its streets, pavements, well-tended flowerbeds, facilities such as the water park, and retail and social centres (see Photographs 5 and 6). There are many activities (gym, country, hiking, bingo, dictation) run exclusively by the residents, who return every year, often to the same site. Some activities are directly linked to the residents’ national or even regional identity, such as Brittany day.
Photograph 5: Deterrent Wall at the Atlantica Parc Campsite Overlooking a Social Housing Estate
Credit: B. Le Bigot, 2015.
Photograph 6: “Streets” along which the Parking Spaces are Positioned
Credit: B. Le Bigot, 2015.
Photograph 7: Atlantica Parc Campsite Main Square
Credit: B. Le Bigot, 2015.
24In her research on French people living on the Petite Côte in Senegal, Quashie (2016) identifies “cracks in the world of communal exclusivity”. There are also cracks in the chosen, exceptional and exclusive spatialities of French retirees in Morocco. Within these enclaves, the heterogeneity of residents, in terms of social class, but also nationality and religion, with the presence of Moroccans from the middle or upper classes, produces tensions. These tensions are a reflection of the different ways in which these French residents relate to Moroccan society, and are expressed in control over spaces, leading some of them to call into question these segregated spatialities.
25The idyllic setting falls far short of satisfying all the residents of the gated community, who identify two main problems: the distance from services, including health services, and the community aspect—although this was what they were looking for in the first place. Ghislaine explained that she only went out to places outside the residence:
“We go to Agadir, we go shopping, we also go out for fun, we eat in restaurants, in nice places, we use the swimming pools there... Just to get out, because if I don’t get out of here, I’ll go crazy! I’ve always been in contact with people not just physically, but on a human level, and I miss that. Here we live in a kind of vacuum and it’s not very nice... This little village mentality... Horrible!” (Ghislaine, aged sixty-eight, French, year-round resident, former dentist, living with a partner)
26This national community aspect, which rejects mixing with Moroccans, is nevertheless embraced by some French people and structured through associations—in particular the Union des Français de l’Étranger (UFE), which has over 1,000 members in Agadir and the surrounding region:
“The French Institute in Agadir organises meals and evening events regularly, and there are lots of Moroccans who come, so I don’t go there anymore. It’s the French Institute! So we should only be among French people, so that we can get together, and now we can’t even do that.” (Yvette, aged sixty-eight, French, winterer, former secretary, living with a partner)
27These remarks, made in public, were criticised by several retirees as “colonial”. The term “racism” is sometimes associated with that of “neo-colonialism” by those who condemn it and who perceive traces of it in the electoral trends in the region, which is more marked by a far-right vote than other districts (Pinel, 2020).
28This relationship with Moroccan society can also be seen in the rules governing the use of space in each shared ownership property. In one of them, Moroccans have been buying houses for several years now, and in a complex designed for French residents, certain elements are missing. The construction of a prayer room was requested at the general meeting by a new Moroccan resident and was categorically refused. In another residence, it was the dress code at the swimming pool that raised questions. While toplessness is banned, so is the burkini (see Photograph 8). Gérard found this shocking:
“We tell them what to wear to the swimming pool, even though we’re in their country. We shouldn’t be surprised if one day we’re thrown out! No, but frankly, it’s a bit like being early colonisers!” (Gérard, aged seventy, French, year-round resident, former cook, divorced)
Photograph 8: Swimming Pool Rules for a Gated Community Banning the Wearing of the Burkini
Credit: J. Pinel, 2017.
29At campsites and in gated communities, apart from a few Moroccan couples who have recently moved in, the locals who mix with the residents are shopkeepers and artisans, cleaners, gardeners and security guards. Our exchanges with them were shaped by survey bias given they were carried out by a white Frenchwoman and a white Frenchman. Whether dodging questions or talking about retirees in a positive light, the discussion generally presented their presence as a job opportunity.
30The issue of “social mixing” and “interculturality” was raised by several retirees. The reason for living in Agadir is sometimes presented as a choice to live with the local population. Despite this spatial strategy of coming together, there is a difficulty in breaking out of European communal exclusivity. The main links with the local population are based on everyday contact in the neighbourhood, commercial exchanges, or relations with possible employees at home, but rarely in a private friendship context. When French people talk about their relations with Moroccans, we note a fairly significant erasure of racial issues in their discourse, unlike the results obtained by Quashie (2016) in Senegal. The few French retirees who have close relationships with Moroccans are people in mixed Franco-Moroccan couples, or who have a relationship with a mixed couple. Here again, contrary to Quashie’s findings, which highlighted strong moral disapproval on the part of French people living in Senegal, couples made up of French men or women and a Moroccan man or woman are not marginalised within the retired community. We detected a form of disappointment on the part of retirees who harbour a curiosity about the other that is often tinged with exoticisation, like Penelope, who had lived in Agadir for ten years:
“That’s what I regret about Morocco, not being able to get to know a few Moroccan families, to see how they live and so on. It’s nice to know how they live. And to learn lots of things, from cooking to how they make carpets.” (Pénélope, aged seventy-five, French, year-round resident, widow, former executive secretary)
31Finally, the choice to settle in Agadir, although presented as contributing to integration into Moroccan society, is linked to the reinforcement of a sociospatial segregation that is already significant within Greater Agadir (Rehaimi, 2013). The new homes are mainly located in central neighbourhoods occupied by the upper middle classes, with good transport and service links. These areas have seen a sharp rise in property prices, linked to the growth in tourism, but also to the arrival of French retirees between 2005 and 2010, a period when investment in real estate was favoured.
32Veschambre and Ripoll (2005) use the term “autonomous use” of space to describe unconstrained use, implying a form of command over space. This mode of appropriation can be seen in the way French people spread out their living space in urban and coastal areas. The coveted nature of these spaces again puts this spatial privilege into perspective, sometimes requiring negotiation with the other actors involved.
33According to the 2010/2016 municipal development plan for the city of Agadir, there is a problem of isolation of the tourist area from the city centre. An analysis of the practices of French retirees in Agadir shows, on the contrary, how these migrants construct an everyday space that connects various central districts, not limiting themselves to a tourist appropriation and easily accessing a diversity of urban resources. There is a strong tendency for daily and weekly ritual movements, linked to consumption, leisure or social activities. Retirees generally combine the use of modern consumer spaces (supermarkets) and traditional spaces (souks in Agadir, Aourir or the more working-class Inezgane). The Agadir municipal market, located in the centre, is the main place for buying fish, meat, flowers and charcuterie, with the latter specifically aimed at the European population. Retirees find there a traditional way of consuming, offering a proximity to shopkeepers in a more European style than the souk.
Photograph 9: The Municipal Market, a European-style Mode of Consumption
Credit: B. Le Bigot, 2015.
Photograph 10: Terrace of the Ibtissam Restaurant, in the Talborj Area, Popular with Winterers
Credit: B. Le Bigot, 2015.
34Thierry, who was renting a house in Tamraght with his partner, travelled to Agadir every day, using the shopping trip as an opportunity to go for a walk. For Claudine and Guy, staying in their motorhome at the Atlantica Parc campsite, their weekly shopping trips to Agadir were an opportunity to stop for lunch in the Talborj area. Situated to the east of the city centre, this area, set back from the tourist zone, is a major focal point for a large number of retired people, particularly in terms of restaurants. Mohamed, the manager of the Ibtissam restaurant, says that his clientele consists almost exclusively of Europeans, but not tourists, who generally stay near the beach.
Map 2: The city of Agadir as Experienced by French Retirees: Privileged Access to the Urban Resources of the City Centre
Credit: Map base: © OpenStreetMap contributors, 2020; Map projection: World Mercator/WGS84 (EPSG: 3395); Design and production: J. Pinel and N. Martin (CNRS/University of Poitiers, Migrinter UMR 7301) (based on Pinel, 2020: 200).
Source: Field survey, J. Pinel, 2017-2020.
35The mapping of the spatial practices of the people surveyed (see Map 2) shows a significant appropriation of the city centre. This is based on a variety of resources of these retirees: free time, mobility (private car, taxi, walking), and a gradual familiarisation with the city over the years. It is also founded on the identity-based appropriation of certain places of consumption, made possible by their purchasing power. This spatial privilege, represented by the ease with which these migrants can spread out their living space in this urban centre, does not open the gates to the “Agadir of the rich” for these retirees. The gap with the city of tourists, which is exclusively focused on the coast, is compounded by a gap with the more luxurious districts, concentrated around the Marina, for example, which are occupied by investors from the Persian Gulf.
- 9 These alcohol-related norms are subject to negotiation and change depending on the establishment.
36As a leisure space, Bidet (2017) identifies the beach as “an indicator of the distinction issues involved in encounters between several social groups”. Lageiste and Rieucau (2009: 2) refer to urban beaches as spaces for “societal staging”. Agadir’s promenade and beach are important places in Agadir’s urban identity (Desse, 2010). As mainly public spaces, they contribute to the co-presence of different groups—in terms of social, gender and racial identification—while reproducing certain boundaries, particularly social boundaries. Gadiris, who spend a lot of time there, particularly in the evenings and at weekends, with their families, in couples, as a duo or on their own, encounter Moroccans on holiday from other regions, as well as from Europe and France in particular. The retirees studied were not the only people identified as white, as Western tourists were also very much in evidence. They share the privilege, albeit spatially limited, of being able to use the space according to Western standards. While the main activity on the promenade is moving around (see Photograph 11), some of the users sit out on the café terraces. This is the only place in Morocco where French people can drink alcohol in public, in line with Agadir’s status as an international tourist resort.9 While a small number of retirees take advantage of this, others see it as a form of disrespect for the local culture.
Photograph 11: Agadir’s Coastal Promenade, a Space of Co-presence
Credit: B. Le Bigot, 2015.
37The beach is dotted with spaces for exclusive use (see Photograph 12), patches offering customers sun-loungers and the tranquillity of an enclosed space. These exclusive spaces do not all have the same status in the social space of the beach, depending on the price of access. The patches reserved to some hotels are rather chic, costing ten euros—payable in euros—per sun-lounger. These spaces are not much used by retirees and, apart from tourists, tend to be frequented by foreign or Moroccan residents of high social status. Other patches cater for an intermediate social class: European tourists, Moroccans, European retirees who are year-round residents or winterers, and even middle-class Gadiris. The “Plage Aziz” patch can be accessed for twenty-five dirhams, or around two and a half euros. It is mainly in these private areas that sunbathing and the wearing of bikinis, or even toplessness, are practised, not without provoking some criticism from Moroccans. The size of the beach means that, apart from the paying sections, the space is free for other users. The French retirees interviewed sometimes frequent the same stretch of sand on a daily basis. Appropriation is established through ritual repetition without the need for specific marking of the space. Less likely to go topless than on private beaches, women still wear swimming costumes, while their Moroccan counterparts, from more working-class backgrounds outside the private areas, remain clothed. Retirees spend their time chatting, and share the space—albeit from a distance—with the Gadiris, who flock here in the afternoons and on weekends to sit facing the sea, play football and sometimes go for a swim.
Photograph 12: Agadir’s Urban Beach, between Private and Open Access Areas
Credit: B. Le Bigot, 2017.
- 10 A very abusive thread towards motor-homers follows the article on the former blog by Terrier Michel (...)
38Although the co-presence on Agadir beach is fairly harmonious, the region’s coastline is nonetheless a coveted area, particularly for its landscape, which raises the challenge for retirees of legitimising their presence. This often involves defining, among French people, good practices—one’s own—and bad practices—those of others. In this respect, the informal appropriation of coastal areas by French motor-homers, who generally come from working-class backgrounds, is seen as a repellent practice, singled out by other French retirees and Moroccans alike. Motor-homers camping “in the wild” are described as polluting the environment and landscape, making no contribution to the local economy, and keeping to themselves. The subject is particularly controversial, as shown by the debate that took place in 2014 on a blog written by Michel Terrier, a Frenchman living in Agadir.10 The critics are fully taken on board by the motor-homers, and several of them defended themselves during the interviews by portraying their detractors as wealthy French villa owners with colonial attitudes.
- 11 Beaugé Florence (2006) Le spleen des retraités migrateurs d’Agadir (The ennui of Agadir’s migrant (...)
39Indeed, the privilege of enjoying the coastline is the focus of major competition for appropriation of space. Twenty kilometres north of Agadir, retirees undertaking “wild” camping were finally forced to give up their spot for an immense tourism and property development project. The project on the Taghazout Bay site is part of the Azur plan, which was due to be inaugurated in 2014 and which covers the largest area of any of the five tourist resorts planned throughout Morocco: 868 hectares, for a hotel capacity of 15,800 beds, a real estate capacity of 5,200 places and a golf course. But the construction work, which began in 2007, first had to destroy another tourist facility: the Taghazout international campsite, an extremely rudimentary campsite that had existed since 1982, according to locals, and where hippie communities stayed among the argan trees. The site has remained nostalgically in the collective imaginary as part of the founding story of the motorhome community in Morocco, characterised by a discourse advocating “freedom” and a “bohemian” spirit.11 In 2004, there were almost 1,200 (mainly French) vehicles on the site (Desse, 2010), and until 2015 there were still several hundred motorhomes, as well as young people in lorries and surfers in converted vans. The police evicted them from the informal camp in 2015, when the golf course on the heights was finished (see Photograph 13). This example shows the negotiations for the appropriation of coastal space between different actors operating at different levels. The nationally organised luxury property industry, involving international investors, is in competition with the most precarious and criticised retiree winterers we interviewed, whose use of the space is completely informal. The privileged dimension of their spatialities is fragile, and yet, for nearly eight years, these motor-homers were tolerated by the authorities on a coveted site, which they had historically appropriated.
Photograph 13: Motor-homers Camping “in the Wild” on the Taghazout Bay Construction Site, in Front of the Recently Constructed Golf Course, a Few Days before the Final Eviction of the Camp
Credit: B. Le Bigot, 2015.
40Often studied through the prism of the triggers of a migration project, lifestyle migration has rarely been analysed through the prism of the spatial dynamics that shape the experiences of these privileged migrants. An analysis of the spatialities of French retirees in the Souss-Massa region shows the considerable latitude enjoyed by this group in appropriating space, both materially and symbolically, in line with their dominant position in national, social and racial hierarchies in a post-colonial context. These privileged spatialities are nonetheless constantly under negotiation in terms of the conditions for living together that apply in the local space.
41Access to a wide range of destination countries is a prerequisite for projects that are fuelled by a paradisiacal, hedonistic vision of retirement that is characteristic of the generation of people surveyed. The French passport, the standard of living differential and the post-colonial linguistic context put these migrants in an advantageous position in relation to the Moroccan destination. However, crossing the border does not encapsulate the entirety of the migratory privilege examined, and an analysis of settlement patterns shows how this is expressed and discussed in spatial terms. The dominant positions of the retirees interviewed in local class-based and race-based social relations gave them access to places designed to preserve their way of life. In this case, migration does not mean integration. However, enjoyment of the exceptionality and exclusivity of one’s place of residence is sometimes called into question, both by a proportion of French retirees seeking cultural mixing, and by the entry of upper-class Moroccans into these spaces. These cracks in the community of French retirees raise questions about the prevalence of social or racial criteria in the spatialities of communal exclusivity sought by Westerners. The appropriation of urban and coastal spaces in Agadir also reveals negotiated spatial privileges. The resources of retirees give them access to and autonomous use of the city’s urban centres. The cohabitation of different norms governing their bodies and consumption limits their practices in part to certain spatial settings shared with international tourists. Finally, the issue of the legitimacy of this migration is a topic of debate within this population and highlights internal social boundaries, at a time when the local property and tourism sector is focusing on the wealthiest people from all corners of the world.
42Between exotic but modern fantasies, chosen segregation, a disappointed quest for communal exclusivity, attempts at integration, cordial co-presence, negotiated practices and precarious tolerance, the spatialities of French retirees in the Souss-Massa region offer a complex and fresh insight into French presence in Morocco. Far from the spatial marginalisation, the control of bodies and/or the experience of residential precariousness that has been widely studied among migrants from the South, this case study consolidates, through a geographical exploration, reflections on the links between migration and privilege.
