L'impossible durabilité d'un littoral marocain entre le volontarisme étatique et la réalité géographique

Abstract

[FR] Le présent article interroge la politique volontariste de l’État marocain vis-à-vis d’un littoral désertique à forte individualité. Il met en question les différentes tentatives étatiques visant à l’intégrer à l’économie nationale. Longtemps resté marginale en raison de ses conditions physiques difficiles, cet espace est subitement devenu hautement stratégique au vu de la géopolitique régionale récente. Sa géographie a fait de lui un espace de nomadisme séculaire dépourvu d’acteurs stables. Dans l’espoir d’attirer de nouveaux acteurs de développement, l’État essaye tant bien que mal de lui donner une image d’espace viable, quitte à arranger habilement ses données démographiques dont dépendent les actions d’aménagement. Aussi, l’État s’efforce de rendre vivable cet espace en mettant en place des infrastructures, qui se sont avérées exclusives du littoral, et des projets grandioses qui peinent à démarrer. La nature et la consistance de ces projets auront sans doute des retombées qui seront tout pour ce milieu naturel sauf durables. Les échecs répétés de ses différentes tentatives semblent présager l’impossibilité de son développement durable.

[EN] This article questions the proactive policy of the Moroccan state towards a desert coastline, located in the middle of the country (in longitude) more than twice as large as Luxembourg and with strong individuality. It questions the various State’s attempts to integrate it into the national economy. Long marginalized due to its difficult physical conditions, this space suddenly became highly strategic in view of recent regional geopolitics such as the recovery of Western Sahara and especially the return of Morocco to the African scene, without forgetting the proximity of the Canary Islands which it faces. Its geography has made it a space of secular nomadism devoid of stable and permanent actors. To remedy this situation, the State is trying, through political programs and agricultural strategies, to gradually settle populations and change their way of life. In the hope of attracting new development actors, the State tries, as best as it can, to give it an image of viable space, even if this means skilfully arranging its demographic data on which planning actions depend. Also, the State is striving to make this space liveable by setting up infrastructures, which have proved to be exclusive from the coastline, and grandiose tourist projects totally in compatible with the desert nature of this space. The nature and consistency of these projects which are struggling to start will undoubtedly have repercussions which will be everything for this natural environment except sustainable. The repeated failures of its various attempts seem to predict the impossibility of its sustainable development.

DOI : http://dx.doi.org/10.15551/lsgdc.v47i2.01