Despite an uncertain international context and an agricultural campaign that seems severely weakened by the rainfall deficit, the national economic situation is generally positive at the start of 2022. According to the Financial Studies and Forecasts Department (DEPF) under the Ministry of Economy and Finance, and following analysis of available economic indicators, secondary activities confirm their recovery, particularly in the electrical energy sector, the construction sector and the extractive sector. This analysis shows that the production of electrical energy improved by 3.4% at the end of the first month of 2022, following an increase of 1.8% a year earlier. This, following the “strengthening of ONEE’s production by 23.7% (following -12.2%) and that of renewable energies relating to Law 13-09 by 12.9% (following +12.6 %), mitigated by the decline in private production of 2.4% (following +5.6%)”. Compared to its pre-crisis level (January 2020), the DEPF indicates in its economic note for the month of March (No. 301) that the production of electrical energy has firmed up by 5.3%. On the construction side, it appears that cement sales increased by 5.8% at the end of the first two months of the current year, following a drop of 10.1% recorded a year earlier, due to the consolidation of sales relating to ready-mixed concrete by 36%, precast (11.9%), building (14.1%) and infrastructure (10.7%). The DEPF also notes the continued dynamism of the extractive sector, following ending 2021 with an improvement in its production index of 2.1%, in consolidation of a 5% increase a year earlier. This sector is benefiting from the positive development of foreign demand addressed to Morocco at the level of OCP activities, according to the DEPF, which underlines that exports of phosphate and derivatives have appreciated, in value, by 123.7% in the first month of 2022. As the DEPF explains in its note, “this change follows an increase of 57.1% at the end of 2021 and 13.3% a year earlier, due to the increase sales abroad of phosphate derivatives by 135.9% and rock phosphate by 34.4%. In terms of domestic demand, household consumption should maintain a positive trend, according to the DEPF, stressing that it is benefiting from the generally favorable behavior of the main income barometers. Management refers in particular to the growth of consumer credit of 2.5% at the end of January 2022, to the convincing level of transfers from MREs and to the maintenance of the compensation effort by the government (5.3 MM from Dhs to end of February 2022) to mitigate the impact of rising international prices on household purchasing power. With regard to the investment effort, it should be consolidated in line with the good performance of imports of capital goods and semi-finished products which increased respectively by 13.5% and 53.1%, to at the end of January 2022, estimates the DEPF in its economic report. The same source indicates, with regard to foreign trade, that exports increased by 23% at the end of January 2022, due to the “increase in sales abroad of almost all export sectors, in particular the phosphates and derivatives, agriculture and agro-food and textile and leather sectors as well as the aeronautics and electronics sectors”. Still according to the DEPF, imports grew at the same time by 39.5% at the end of January, widening the trade deficit by 75.2%; while the Official Reserve Assets (AOR) remain at their end-December 2021 level. This, she continues, ensures coverage for 6 months and 22 days of imports of goods and services. In terms of public finances, the latest economic report shows that “the increase in ordinary revenue of 9.1% at the end of February 2022 resulted in a reduction in the budget deficit, despite the increase in overall expenditure of 2 .5%”. As for the indicators relating to the financing of the economy, they show an improvement in the growth of bank loans of 3.4% at the end of January 2022, but report falls in the stock market indices MASI and MSI 20 respectively of 5.9% and 6.7% during the month of February 2022. This offsets their positive performance compared to the end of December 2021.
Falling in the polls, the far-right candidate Eric Zemmour opted for an even more exacerbated radicalism by proposing Monday evening a ministry of “remigration”, a sulphurous concept borrowed from identities, some of whom are present in his entourage.
If elected, the candidate Reconquest! promises to “make a million” foreigners leave once more in five years, thanks to “charters”, and to see “with the leaders of Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia how we can organize this”.
It targets “illegals, foreign delinquents and criminals and foreigners on file”, and claims a “measure of consistency and firmness”.
The only presidential candidate to take up the conspiracy theory of the supposed “great replacement” of European populations by non-European immigrants, he endorses with “remigration” a new demand from the radical far right and the writer Renaud Camus.
The expression did not appear in its initial program.
“No taboo”
“You shouldn’t be afraid of words that upset a small (journalistic) community. There is no radicalization”, but “a determination”, he claimed yesterday, Tuesday March 22, 2022 in the morning, during a trip to Aulnay-sous-Bois (Seine-Saint-Denis).
According to two pillars of the campaign, the proposal was blown by the former LR Guillaume Peltier, also passed through the youth movement of the National Front, then the parties of Bruno Mégret and Philippe de Villiers.
And it causes internal tugging. “Leading executives were not notified before the announcement. They didn’t really appreciate it”, slips a member of Reconquest!, while Eric Zemmour assures that his rally Marion Maréchal was well associated with this decision.
The researcher Marion Jacquet-Vaillant (Paris II) explains in her thesis that the term “remigration appears from 2011 in identity networks, and more regularly from 2014”.
These far-right groups use it in a broader sense than Eric Zemmour, since they advocate “the return to their countries of origin of a majority of non-European immigrants”, and not only foreigners.
“In March 2014, the Identitaires marched behind a banner “Immigration-Islamization, Demain la Remigration”; (…) on November 15, they organize the Assises de la Remigration, a day subtitled “From the great replacement to the great return”, describes Marion Jacquet-Vaillant.
Participating in this meeting are some executives from Eric Zemmour’s campaign today, such as the former Bloc identitaire Damien Rieu, who leads the digital response cell of the presidential candidate, or his adviser, enarque and former megretist, Jean-Yves Le Gallou.
“They will leave”
Several identities appear in his entourage. Thais d’Escufon, the former spokesperson for Génération Identitaire, a small group dissolved in March 2021 because of its xenophobic activism, expressed its support for him.
Grégoire Tingaud, a former megretist close to the identitarians, is responsible for coordinating the regional referents of Reconquête!.
With Eric Zemmour today, the defector of the RN Stéphane Ravier had proposed the creation of a “High commissioner for remigration”, without being tapped on the fingers by Marine Le Pen at the time.
And the idea, without the word itself, was present at the National Front when Jean-Marie Le Pen’s party demanded “the inversion of migratory flows” or launched slogans such as “when we arrive, they will leave”.
The former polemicist CNews takes up this expression as he falls in the polls, which place him from 3e at the 5e place, between 9 and 13% of voting intentions in the first round, while Marine Le Pen, between 16 and 20%, remains in second position behind Emmanuel Macron.
The RN candidate does not envisage such a ministry but intends to expel the same categories as Eric Zemmour: illegal immigrants, foreign delinquents and criminals, foreign S files.
She said in the evening on BFMTV to be in “profound disagreement” with the concept at its origin aiming to “remove French nationality from those who had obtained it”, but said not to understand “the new perimeter” envisaged by Eric Zemmour.
When Marine Le Pen speaks of “purchasing power”, Eric Zemmour maintains his strategy of anti-immigration radicalism and the opening of the “Overton window”, named following the inventor of this concept of discourse theory, which makes acceptable in public opinion theories that were not so until then.
Next Sunday at the Trocadéro in Paris, he hopes for the arrival of tens of thousands of people for an outdoor meeting, in order to reassure supporters who are beginning to doubt the chances of their champion.
Here is the weather forecast for Wednesday, March 23, 2022, established by the General Directorate of Meteorology.
– Sometimes stormy rains or showers in the plains of Gharb, Chaouia and Souss, but also along the Mediterranean shore, in the Rif and Atlas mountains, as well as in the Ouled Abdoun basin.
– Scattered rains in Oriental, Tafilalet and part of the Souss plain.
– Snowfall in the High and Middle Atlas.
– Relatively strong gusts of wind, even strong, in the Oriental and Tafilalet, blowing sand in places.
– The weather will remain cold in the reliefs of the Atlas and the Rif.
– Today’s temperatures will be lower than yesterday.
– Rough seas in the Mediterranean and in the strait, rough to rough in places, slightly rough to rough between Tarfaya and Laayoune.
– Here are the minimum and maximum temperatures forecast by the General Directorate of Meteorology for the day of Wednesday, March 23, 2022.
Oujda : min (+12°C) ; max (+22°C)
Bouarfa : min (+13°C) ; max (+20°C)
Al Hoceima : min (+14°C) ; max (+20°C)
Tetouan : min (+11°C) ; max (+15°C)
Sebta : min (+11°C) ; max (+14°C)
Melilla : min (+13°C) ; max (+16°C)
Tanger : min (+12°C) ; max (+18°C)
Kenitra : min (+12°C) ; max (+15°C)
Rabat : min (+10°C) ; max (+16°C)
Casablanca : min (+10°C) ; max (+15°C)
El Jadida : min (+12°C) ; max (+17°C)
Settat : min (+9°C) ; max (+14°C)
Safi : min (+10°C) ; max (+16°C)
Khouribga : min (+8°C) ; max (+13°C)
Mellal me : min (+9°C) ; max (+14°C)
Marrakech : min (+9°C) ; max (+20°C)
Meknes : min (+9°C) ; max (+16°C)
Fès : min (+10°C) ; max (+17°C)
Ifrane : min (+1°C) ; max (+10°C)
Taounate : min (+11°C) ; max (+18°C)
Errachidia : min (+12°C) ; max (+19°C)
Ouarzazate : min (+10°C) ; max (+23°C)
Agadir : min (+14°C) ; max (+18°C)
Essaouira : min (+12°C) ; max (+15°C)
Laayoune : min (+14°C) ; max (+23°C)
Smara : min (+13°C) ; max (+25°C)
Dakhla : min (+15°C) ; max (+22°C)
Aoussrd : min (+17°C) ; max (+29°C)
Lagouira : min (+16°C) ; max (+29°C).
One death, 87 new cases of contamination and 43 recoveries were confirmed in the Kingdom on March 21 and 22, 2022. The still active cases stand at 575, while more than 6.06 million people received the third dose. . Monitoring the pandemic, in figures.
New cases of contamination, remissions, number of screenings carried out, vaccinations, etc. To learn more regarding the evolution of the coronavirus in Morocco, click on this link: https://covid.le360.ma.
© : Ministry of Health
In the Maghreb, Algeria does not communicate the number of screening tests, which suggests that the number of contaminations is much higher than the official figures. The last assessment stopped reports 12 new cases infected with Covid-19, 1 death and 10 recoveries. The country totals 265,562 cases of contamination, including 6,872 deaths and 178,198 recoveries.
In Tunisia, 166 new cases of contamination, 2 deaths and 1,208 recoveries have been recorded, according to the latest report available. The country has totaled 1,029,762 cases of contamination, including 28,065 deaths and 983,630 recoveries since March 2020.
In Mauritania, 3 cases of contamination and 2 recoveries have been recorded, according to the latest report available. The country has recorded 58,665 cases of Covid-19 contamination, including 981 deaths and 57,674 recoveries.
The director of the WHO in Europe expressed concern regarding the epidemic rebound currently observed on the continent, pointing to the too rapid lifting of anti-Covid-19 measures.
Several European countries, including Germany, France, Italy and the United Kingdom, have lifted their anti-Covid measures too “brutally” and find themselves faced with a sharp rise in cases under the effect of the subvariant BA.2, the World Health Organization lamented on Tuesday.
During a press conference relocated to Moldova, the director of the WHO in Europe, Hans Kluge, said he was “vigilant” regarding the current epidemic situation on the continent, while claiming to remain “optimistic”.
King Harald of Norway, 85, has tested positive for covid-19, the Norwegian royal palace announced on Tuesday.
Showing “mild symptoms”, King Harald “will be absent for illness over the next few days”, the same source said in a statement.
Until his return, his son, Crown Prince Haakon, will act as interim. On the throne for more than three decades, King Harald had to have an artificial heart valve implanted in 2005, which was replaced during an operation in 2020.
Chinese authorities on Tuesday ordered the containment of the city of Shenyang, capital of Liaoning province (northeast), as part of efforts to contain the spread of Covid-19.
City residents must present a negative PCR test result within 48 hours and produce a special pass to enter and exit their residential community, the Covid-19 Pandemic Prevention and Control Center said. 19 of the city.
Rural inhabitants, on the other hand, need a pass to enter and leave their village.
Local health officials launched a third round of city-wide screenings on Tuesday. The second round of mass screenings conducted last Saturday and Sunday identified 45 positive cases of Covid-19, city authorities said.
According to a report on Monday, the city of Shenyang has reported 241 local positive cases, including 94 confirmed cases and 147 asymptomatic carriers.
China has recorded more than 41,000 Covid-19 infections in 28 provinces and regions between 1is and March 21, 2022.
Scientists at Australia’s QIMR Berghofer Institute for Medical Research have found new evidence that the blood of someone who has recovered from Covid-19 might be used to protect vulnerable people.
The research, published in the journal PLOS Pathogens and released on Tuesday, showed how T-cell immunotherapy might be used in immunocompromised people.
“This study gives us hope that we can develop a T-cell immunotherapy capable of treating multiple variants of Covid-19 in the sickest patients,” said lead researcher Corey Smith.
Japan on Tuesday lifted the quasi-emergency state in force in 18 of the country’s 47 prefectures, including those of Tokyo and Osaka, as part of efforts to combat Covid-19.
The decision to lift the emergency measures, implemented since January 8, comes following the drop in the number of daily infections with the new coronavirus
Given the pressure on the health system, the government decided last Thursday to officially lift all emergency measures.
The pandemic has officially killed at least 6,105,133 people worldwide since the end of December 2019, according to a report established by AFP.
The United States is the country with the most deaths (998,840), ahead of Brazil (657,363), India (516,574) and Russia (364,901).
The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates, taking into account the excess mortality directly and indirectly linked to Covid-19, that the toll of the pandemic might be two to three times higher than that officially established.