French Morocco

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French Morocco (Fr. Maroc) was a colony of France established by the Treaty of Fez in what is now the country of Morocco minus the north which was a Spanich protectorate. It existed from 1912, when a protectorate was formally established, until Moroccan independence (2 March 1956), and consisted generally of the area of Morocco between Fez and Rabat south to Mogador.

French activity in Morocco began during the 19th century; in 1904 France and Spain secretly partitioned the territory of the sultanate, with Spain later creating Spanish Morocco from its portion.

The French minted coinage for use in the Protectorate from 1921 until 1956, which continued to circulate until a new currency was introduced. The French minted coins with denomination of francs, which were divided into 100 centimes. This was replaced in 1974 with the reintroduction of the dirham, Morocco's current currency.

[edit] Postal history

A French postal agency had sent mail from Tangier as early as 1854, but the formal beginning of the system was in 1891, when French post offices were established throughout the sultanate. The offices issued postage stamps of France surcharged with values in pesetas and centimos, at a 1-1 ratio with the denominations in French currency, using both the Type Sage issues, and after 1902, Mouflon issue inscribed "MAROC" (which were never officially issued without the surcharge). In 1911, the Mouflon designs were overprinted in Arabic; in the same year, the Sherifian post was created to handle local mail, using special stamps.

The first stamps of the protectorate appeared 1 August 1914, and were just the existing stamps with the additional overprint reading "PROTECTORAT FRANCAIS". The first new designs were in an issue of 1917, consisting of 17 stamps in six designs, denominated in centimes and francs, and inscribed "MAROC".