Abderrahmane Youssoufi

Abderrahmane Youssoufi (8 March 1924 – 29 May 2020) was a Moroccan politician and human rights lawyer who served as prime minister of Morocco from 4 February 1998 to 9 October 2002, under King Hassan II and then King Mohammed VI, and led the Socialist Union of Popular Forces (USFP). ¹

Born in Tangier, Youssoufi was a socialist from a young age, dedicating himself to organising the working class of Casablanca as early as 1944, and from 1949 also fighting for the rights of immigrant Moroccan workers in France. He studied law and practised in Tangier from 1952 to 1960. He moved within the Army of Liberation alongside its leader Fqih Basri, joined the Istiqlal Party at nineteen, and was nicknamed "Lenin" by the Moroccan police for the intensity of his nationalism. ¹

In 1959 Youssoufi was one of the founders of the National Union of Popular Forces and served as editor-in-chief of its newspaper at-Tahrir. He was arrested in 1959 and again in 1963, the latter arrest leading to a two-year prison sentence; on his release he went into self-imposed exile in Paris for fifteen years. The party became the Socialist Union of Popular Forces; Youssoufi served as its permanent delegate abroad, joined its political bureau in 1978, returned to Morocco in 1980, and became party secretary in 1992 after the death of Abderrahim Bouabid. In 1983 he co-founded the Arab Organization for Human Rights. ¹

On 4 February 1998, following his party's victory in the 1997 general election, King Hassan II named Youssoufi prime minister; he formed a left-centre government — the alternance government — which provided greater freedoms for people and media. In 2002 the USFP was again returned at the general election, but King Mohammed VI appointed the technocrat Driss Jettou to succeed him. Youssoufi resigned as First Secretary of the USFP on 28 October 2003 and announced his retirement from politics in February 2005, living thereafter in Casablanca. ^{1 2}

Youssoufi was one of the two winners of the North-South Prize in 1991. In 2016 King Mohammed VI named an avenue in Tangier after him and visited him in hospital that October. He died on 29 May 2020, at the age of 96, of lung cancer, and his funeral was held at the Chouhada (martyrs) cemetery in Casablanca. ¹

No article in any edition names a religion or a school for Youssoufi; the only religion datum anywhere is Wikidata's value of Islam in general. His socialism is his politics, which neither attests nor negates a personal affiliation. His faith is therefore recorded as unknown. ^{3 1 2}

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