Morocco has expelled two French journalists this week in a move denounced by media outlets and press freedom advocates.
On Wednesday, ten plainclothes police officers took Staff reporter Quentin Müller and freelancer photojournalist Thérèse Di Campo, who work for the weekly Marianne magazine from their Casablanca hotel and put them on the first flight to Paris.
Both Müller and Stéphane Aubouard, an editor at Marianne, said the evictions were politically motivated in response to critical reportage.
Morocco denied the charge about the French journalists and said their removal was about procedure, not politics. However, media activists framed it as the latest action taken by Moroccan authorities against journalists.
Moroccans whose homes were destroyed by last week’s earthquake face daunting rebuilding decisions. In a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, Müller linked their expulsions to broader concerns about retaliation against journalists in Morocco.
“We were removed and forcibly expelled from the country without any explanation. This speaks a lot to the repressive atmosphere in Morocco,” he said, noting that he and Di Campo — neither based in Morocco — had travelled to the country to pursue critical reporting on the rule of King Mohammed VI, a topic considered taboo in the North African country
In a subsequent op-ed, Aubouard said the two went to Morocco following this month’s devastating earthquake that killed nearly 3,000 people. He said the expulsions “confirm the difficulty that foreign and local journalists have working in the country.”
Morocco has garnered some international condemnation in recent years for what many see as its efforts to infringe on press freedoms. At least three Moroccan journalists who have reported critically on government actions are in prison, convicted of crimes unrelated to journalism.
The Committee to Protect Journalists and Reporters Without Borders both denounced the expulsions on X, with the latter describing them as a “brutal and inadmissible attack on press freedom.”
The Moroccan government spokesperson Mustapha Baitas clarified on Thursday that the expulsions were a matter of protocol, not politics. He stated that both journalists, Müller and Di Campo, had not applied for the required accreditation as mandated by Moroccan law.
Baitas explained that Müller and Di Campo had initially entered the country as tourists and had not indicated any intention to engage in journalistic activities. He addressed reporters during a press conference held in Rabat on Thursday.
Tensions have recently escalated between Morocco and France, with Rabat recalling its ambassador to France earlier this year and refraining from appointing a replacement.