Key Takeaways:
The Parti national rifain (PNR) seeks to internationalize a claim for restoring the short-lived 1921–1926 Republic of the Rif, presenting it as a suspended sovereign state while distinguishing historical anti-colonial resistance from contemporary separatism.
The movement has gained political visibility and a platform in Algeria, including conferences and reported convergence with the Polisario Front, amid the broader Morocco–Algeria rivalry over identities, diasporas, and territorial narratives.
The article stresses that Rifian cultural identity and past grievances do not equate to majority support for independence, arguing that Morocco’s most effective response lies in territorial development, inclusion, and reclaiming the historical narrative rather than equating all Rifian expression with separatism.
Introduction: When History Becomes a Geopolitical Weapon
The announcement of a new mobilization by the Parti national rifain (PNR) in Brussels, reportedly planned for around September 19, 2026, deserves particular attention. It is not merely another episode in the activism of a separatist movement established in Europe. Rather, it forms part of a broader transformation of the Algerian-Moroccan conflict: the confrontation is no longer confined to Western Sahara but is increasingly becoming an open competition over identities, historical narratives, diasporas, and separatist movements.

The PNR claims to seek the restoration of the Republic of the Rif and the recovery of an independence that it considers to have been lost. Its discourse is based largely on a reinterpretation of the political experience of Abdelkrim El Khattabi and the Rif War of 1921–1926. The movement presents this experience as historical proof of the existence of a sovereign Rif state whose sovereignty was subsequently usurped by contemporary Morocco.

This interpretation nevertheless requires a fundamental distinction. Abdelkrim’s Republic of the Rif belongs to the history of anti-colonial resistance; the PNR’s project belongs to contemporary separatist politics. To conflate the two is to transform a complex historical experience into an instrument for legitimizing a present-day political project.

The issue is all the more important because the PNR now enjoys considerable political visibility in Algeria. In November 2024, the Algerian press reported on a major meeting of the movement in Algiers, organized under the theme “The Republic of the Rif and the Right to Recover Independence.” The PNR explicitly called for international support for its cause and stated its intention to bring the issue before African and international institutions. (Horizons).

There is therefore one incontestable fact: Algiers has become an important international platform for the PNR’s independence discourse. This fact alone is insufficient to demonstrate that the party was “created” by the Algerian security services. Such an assertion requires specific evidence. It does, however, make it possible to speak of a clear political and strategic convergence between the PNR and part of the Algerian political establishment—a convergence that takes on particular significance when considered alongside the alliance between the PNR and the Polisario Front. It is this development that deserves analysis.

Abdelkrim’s Rif: An Anti-Colonial History, Not Simply a Separatist Precedent
Any serious analysis of the PNR must begin with Abdelkrim El Khattabi. The Rif War of 1921–1926 constitutes one of the most important episodes in the history of anti-colonial resistance in the Maghreb. Rifian forces, led by Abdelkrim, inflicted a spectacular defeat on the Spanish army at Annual in July 1921 before confronting French forces from 1925 onward. The war ended with Abdelkrim’s surrender in May 1926. (Persée).

Historical scholarship emphasizes the profoundly anti-colonial character of this war. Paul Euzière recalls that Abdelkrim’s epic struggle constituted a major example of resistance to colonial imperialism and had considerable international resonance (Euzière, 2006). (Persée).

Vincent Courcelle-Labrousse and Nicolas Marmié have likewise demonstrated how the Rif War was a major military and political confrontation involving Abdelkrim’s forces and the two colonial powers that controlled Morocco: Spain and France (Courcelle-Labrousse & Marmié, 2008). (Google Books).

The memory of Ibn Abdelkrim El Khattabi has been preserved in Rifian oral culture through songs, poems, epic narratives, and popular traditions (Chtatou, 1991). This memory is therefore not a recent invention of a political movement in exile: it constitutes a deep component of the cultural memory of the Rif. This is precisely why its contemporary political instrumentalization must be examined with caution. (ResearchGate).

The Republic of the Rif was a short-lived political experiment born out of the exceptional circumstances of an anti-colonial war. Historical scholarship itself emphasizes its complexity. Romain Ducoulombier notes that Abdelkrim’s regime was a political organization based largely on the federation of Rifian tribes around his leadership, rather than a modern nation-state in the contemporary sense (Ducoulombier, 2008). (La Vie des Idées). This distinction is fundamental.

To portray Abdelkrim as an automatic precursor of contemporary Rifian separatism is to detach his struggle from its colonial context. Abdelkrim was primarily fighting the colonial powers that had imposed their control over Morocco. His historical trajectory therefore cannot be reduced to the claim that he simply sought to create a state permanently separated from Morocco.

The PNR and the Political Reconstruction of the Past
It is precisely this history that the PNR is now attempting to reinterpret. The movement presents the Republic of the Rif as a sovereign entity whose independence was unlawfully interrupted. At its Algiers meeting in November 2024, its representatives argued that the Republic of the Rif should be regarded as a sovereign political entity and that the Rifian people possessed a “right” to recover that independence. (LE MAGHREB).

The problem is that this interpretation transforms an episode of anti-colonial resistance into a contemporary legal title to secession. History, however, does not operate in this manner.

A historical political entity that existed for a few years under colonial circumstances does not automatically retain, a century later, a legal personality entitling its descendants to restore that entity. Otherwise, the contemporary international order would be filled with states waiting to be “restored” on the basis of vanished political configurations.

The PNR therefore constructs a selective political genealogy: Abdelkrim becomes the founder of a permanently sovereign state; the Rif War becomes a war of independence against Morocco; the Protectorate becomes the starting point of Moroccan colonization; and independent Morocco becomes the legal heir of a colonial power. This construction is historically and politically contestable.

The Rif Is Not Synonymous with Separatism
This distinction is particularly important in order to avoid another form of manipulation: equating every Rifian demand with the PNR’s independence claim.

In my article “The Rif Is Rebellious but Not Separatist,” I specifically emphasized this distinction. I argued that the contemporary history of the Rif has been marked by revolts, frustrations, economic and social grievances, and demands for justice, but that this does not mean that the Rifian population as a whole is committed to a project of separation from Morocco (Chtatou, 2024). (جريدة العالم الأمازيغي). This distinction is crucial.

The Rif possesses a distinctive cultural, linguistic, and historical identity. Tarifit is a fundamental component of that identity. In my study of the role of Tarifit in the Amazigh culture of northern Morocco, I show that the language is not merely a means of communication: it constitutes a reservoir of memory, values, beliefs, and collective belonging (Chtatou, 2024). (ResearchGate).

Rifian identity exists; it does not mechanically imply separatism.
This truth should constitute the starting point of any serious analysis.

The Rif Hirak of 2016–2017 provides a revealing example. The mobilizations focused largely on dignity, social justice, healthcare, education, employment, infrastructure, and the struggle against marginalization. They sometimes employed historical Rifian symbols, but it would be reductive to retrospectively transform them into an independence movement. The need for an inclusive development program based on dialogue was essential to addressing the Rif crisis (Chtatou, 2017). (Morocco World News). This approach remains essential today.

The PNR’s Algerian Turning Point
The real strategic shift came with the PNR’s establishment within the Algerian political sphere. In March 2024, the Algerian daily Le Courrier d’Algérie reported the existence of an official PNR representation in Algiers and presented Algeria as a new platform for the movement. The article stated that the PNR intended to continue its struggle for the creation of a Rifian Republic. (Le Courrier d’Algérie). This presence is not insignificant.

In a region where Rabat and Algiers have been engaged in intense geopolitical competition for decades, providing a separatist movement claiming a Moroccan territory with a political space necessarily constitutes a political signal. The parallel with the Polisario Front is difficult to avoid.

Algeria has long provided political support to the Polisario in the Western Sahara conflict. At the same time, the PNR has found in Algeria a political space from which to develop its discourse on Rifian independence. In November 2024, a PNR conference in Algiers brought together representatives of several Algerian political parties as well as foreign representatives. (Horizons).

More significantly, the Polisario Front was represented at certain events organized around the Rifian cause. Le Maghreb reported in November 2024 a statement of solidarity from the Polisario Front with the PNR. (LE MAGHREB).

This is therefore no longer simply a Rifian organization seeking an audience in Europe.

A new political architecture is beginning to emerge: Algiers as a platform, the PNR as a Moroccan separatist movement, and the Polisario as an ideological and strategic partner.

The Sahara Mirror: Constructing Symmetry Between the Rif and Western Sahara
The PNR–Polisario rapprochement rests on a straightforward logic: constructing symmetry. The Rifian independence discourse portrays the Rif as a territory “occupied” by Morocco. The Polisario portrays Western Sahara as a territory over which Moroccan sovereignty is illegitimate. Both movements therefore seek to present themselves as “national liberation” movements.

In November 2024, PNR officials in Algiers explicitly presented the Republic of the Rif and the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic as comparable situations, even describing them as two of Africa’s remaining “decolonization” questions. (LE MAGHREB).

This strategy offers an obvious advantage to the PNR: it enables the movement to borrow from the Polisario part of its diplomatic vocabulary, international experience, and African networks. It also offers an advantage to the Polisario and Algiers: it creates a rhetorical symmetry between Moroccan claims in the Sahara and separatist claims against Morocco.

The logic then becomes:

If Morocco supports the right to self-determination in Western Sahara according to its own political interpretation, why should the Rif not enjoy the same right?

Yet this symmetry is far from established historically or legally.

The trajectories of the Rif and Western Sahara are not identical. Their colonial contexts differ; their historical processes differ; their populations and political structures differ; and their respective international diplomatic frameworks cannot be mechanically equated. The comparison is therefore a political construction, not an automatic historical equivalence.

A “Creation of Algeria”? Distinguishing Support from Creation
The assertion that the PNR is an “Algerian creation” is politically understandable in the present context, but it must be handled with rigor. The PNR was established in Belgium in 2023 according to the available sources. It would therefore be inaccurate, in the absence of additional evidence, to claim that Algeria legally created the organization or that Algerian authorities were its founders. What can be documented, however, is political support and political hospitality from Algeria.

The PNR’s official presence in Algiers, coverage of its activities by the Algerian press, meetings with Algerian officials and political parties, participation by foreign representatives in its conferences, and the presence of Polisario representatives constitute a body of evidence indicating substantial political convergence. (Horizons).

It would therefore be more scientifically prudent to speak of the geopolitical instrumentalization of the Rifian cause or of Algerian support for the internationalization of the PNR. Such a distinction strengthens rather than weakens the argument.

For the essential question is ultimately not who legally “created” the PNR. It is why a Moroccan separatist movement has found in Algiers a political and diplomatic space that it does not possess inside Morocco. The answer is largely geopolitical: the PNR can serve to create a mirror image of the Polisario.

The Algerian Paradox: Self-Determination à la Carte
There is a political paradox here that deserves emphasis. Algeria has long presented the principle of self-determination as one of the pillars of its foreign policy, particularly in the Western Sahara dossier. Yet when the principle of self-determination is applied to Kabylia, the political framework becomes radically different.

Morocco, for its part, accuses Algeria of supporting the Polisario and sees the PNR as a similar attempt to instrumentalize the Rif issue. The logic of the mirror is now complete. Algiers supports the Polisario; Rabat supports autonomy for Western Sahara; Algiers hosts the PNR; Rabat denounces the move as interference.

The consequence is troubling: bilateral competition is gradually transforming regional identities into instruments of indirect geopolitical warfare. The risk is that the Rif could become one of the new theaters in this war of narratives.

The Diaspora as a Space of Politicization
The choice of Brussels is particularly significant in this context. Contemporary separatist movements no longer necessarily seek immediate territorial control. They can begin by seeking control over a transnational narrative.

The diaspora is a privileged space for this purpose: it enjoys political freedoms, associative networks, community media, lobbying opportunities, and access to European institutions. The PNR is precisely seeking to internationalize the Rifian question.

This strategy forms part of a broader dynamic involving the transnationalization of Amazigh and Rifian identities. The memory of the Rif now circulates between Morocco, the Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, France, and other diaspora spaces. The memory of Abdelkrim is not confined to the Rifian territory: it is reproduced through narratives, languages, oral traditions, and migrant communities (Chtatou, 1991). Yet transnational cultural memory is not automatically equivalent to transnational separatist mobilization. It is precisely this distinction that the PNR seeks to minimize.

The Danger of the Political Appropriation of Amazigh Identity
There is a broader issue here that goes beyond the PNR. Amazigh identity is a constitutive component of Morocco’s history. The Moroccan Constitution of 2011 recognized Amazigh as an official language alongside Arabic and institutionalized its development. Amazigh identity cannot be reduced to a separatist political demand. It represents a much broader cultural, linguistic, historical, and social universe (Chtatou, 2026). (جريدة العالم الأمازيغي).

Excessive politicization of Amazigh identity could therefore produce a perverse effect: creating the impression that Amazigh identity and Moroccan sovereignty are necessarily incompatible. Historically, this conclusion is false. Morocco is simultaneously Amazigh, Arab, Islamic, African, and Mediterranean. These dimensions are not necessarily mutually exclusive.

The real challenge is therefore to construct a form of citizenship that allows regional identities to flourish without automatically transforming diversity into territorial fragmentation.

The PNR and the New Diplomatic Battle after the Polisario’s Setbacks
The rise of the PNR also occurs at a particularly sensitive moment for regional diplomacy. Developments in the Western Sahara dossier must be understood through the changing balance of international power and the transformation of the diplomatic context (Chtatou, 2026). (Oulemag). From this perspective, PNR activism can be interpreted as an attempt to diversify the fronts of confrontation.

If the Western Sahara dossier is gradually becoming less favorable to the Polisario in certain diplomatic arenas, promoting a new separatist claim against Morocco could appear as a means of shifting the confrontation elsewhere. It would then represent a transition from a strategy centered on the Sahara to a broader strategy of territorial and identity-based pressure on Morocco.

This hypothesis helps explain why the Rif is of interest to Algiers: it constitutes the geographical mirror image of the Sahara. The Sahara is in the south; the Rif is in the north. The Polisario contests Moroccan sovereignty in the Sahara; the PNR seeks to contest Moroccan sovereignty in the Rif. The geopolitical symmetry is obvious.

But Does the PNR Actually Have a Popular Base in the Rif?
This is probably the most important question. A movement can be highly active within the diaspora without possessing genuine territorial roots. The PNR can organize conferences in Algiers, Brussels, or Madrid. It can obtain occasional political support. It can issue communiqués and develop a strong digital presence. But none of this answers a fundamental question: How many Rifians living in the Rif genuinely want independence?

To date, there is no electoral demonstration, referendum, or robust scientific survey allowing us to conclude that a majority of the Rifian population wants the creation of an independent state. We must therefore avoid a fundamental confusion: the international visibility of a movement is not synonymous with popular representativeness. The PNR claims to represent the Rifian people. Yet this claim remains a political assertion, not an established electoral mandate.

The 2016–2017 Hirak in the Rif demonstrates precisely how dangerous it would be to reduce the Rifian population to a single political project. The movement’s demands focused primarily on public services, employment, dignity, and territorial justice. The Rif has always been rebellious but never separatist (Chtatou, 2024). (جريدة العالم الأمازيغي). This formulation deserves to become one of the guiding principles of the debate.

The Best Response to Separatism: Territorial Development
Morocco should therefore not respond to the PNR solely through defensive diplomacy. It must respond through substantive policy. The Rif needs investment, infrastructure, universities, research centers, healthcare services, employment, sustainable tourism development, and the promotion of its Amazigh heritage.

The Rif crisis had to be addressed through dialogue and through a genuine regional development program (Chtatou, 2017). (Morocco World News). This recommendation remains remarkably relevant today. For the best antidote to separatism is not always repression of separatist discourse. It is the construction of a territorially just state.

The more citizens in the Rif feel fully integrated into a prosperous, democratic political community that respects their identity, the less credible a separatist claim to speak on their behalf becomes. The Rif question should therefore be incorporated into a national policy of territorial convergence.

Brussels: A Symbolic Proclamation Does Not Create a State
If the demonstration announced in Brussels for September 19, 2026, takes place, it should receive political and media attention, but without attributing to it a legal significance that it does not possess. A political movement may symbolically proclaim the restoration of a republic. But a proclamation in exile is not sufficient to create a state.

Statehood requires, among other things, a population, a territory, effective institutions, and the capacity to conduct international relations. The PNR currently possesses no sovereign territory. It does not exercise governmental authority in the Rif. It does not enjoy international recognition as the sovereign government of the Rif. Nor does it possess an established electoral mandate from the Rifian population.

It would therefore be more accurate to regard a possible proclamation in Brussels as an act of political communication and internationalization of the claim rather than as the actual birth of a new state. The contemporary “Republic of the Rif” thus remains a political construction in exile.

A Political Chimera—but Not an Issue to Be Ignored
Calling the project a “chimera” does not mean that it should be ignored. Small political organizations can sometimes acquire disproportionate influence when they benefit from international networks, state support, or a favorable geopolitical environment. The danger therefore does not lie in the immediate possibility of creating a Rifian state.

It lies in the PNR’s ability gradually to internationalize its narrative, obtain parliamentary support, penetrate European and African associative and media networks, and promote the idea that the Rif constitutes an international question comparable to Western Sahara. This strategy deserves serious monitoring.

Morocco must above all avoid the mistake of treating the phenomenon as a mere political joke. A chimera can become a narrative. A narrative can become a mobilization. A mobilization can become a diplomatic instrument. And a diplomatic instrument can become a lasting source of regional tension.

Conclusion: Defending the Rif from Its Own Instrumentalization
The development of the Parti national rifain therefore represents less the birth of a new republic than the emergence of a new front in the geopolitical competition between Morocco and Algeria.

The PNR genuinely exists as an independence movement. It explicitly advocates restoring the Republic of the Rif. It has established a political presence in Algeria. It has organized international conferences in Algiers devoted to Rifian independence. It has developed a public convergence with the Polisario Front. These facts are documented. (Horizons).

By contrast, the assertion that the PNR is an “Algerian creation” in the strict sense should remain a political hypothesis unless direct documentary evidence becomes available to establish it. Yet this caution does not alter the substance of the issue.

Algeria offers the PNR a political platform that the movement uses to internationalize a separatist claim against Morocco. This reality alone is sufficient to make the PNR a new element in the Maghreb rivalry. At the same time, however, Morocco must avoid a symmetrical mistake: treating every expression of Rifian identity as separatist.

The Rif does not belong to the PNR. Abdelkrim’s history does not belong to the PNR. The Tarifit language does not belong to the PNR. The Amazigh culture of the Rif does not belong to the PNR. Above all, the Rifian population cannot automatically be represented by a political movement established in exile.

The Rif possesses a memory of resistance, a deeply rooted Amazigh culture, and a distinctive political tradition, but this does not mean that its identity is incompatible with Moroccan belonging (Chtatou, 1991, 2024). (ResearchGate). Morocco’s genuine response must therefore be twofold.

Externally, Rabat must systematically deconstruct the historical fiction that the Republic of the Rif of 1921–1926 constitutes a contemporary state whose independence was merely “suspended.” It must also demonstrate the distinction between Abdelkrim’s anti-colonial struggle and contemporary separatism. Internally, it must pursue a much more ambitious policy of development, territorial justice, cultural recognition, and civic participation in the Rif.

For the best way to reduce the political space available to separatism is to reconcile Rifian identity fully with Moroccan belonging. The Rif question should therefore not be framed as a choice between identity and national unity.

It should instead be framed in the following terms:

How can Morocco build a state that is sufficiently democratic, sufficiently just, and sufficiently inclusive for Rifian identity to flourish fully without being captured by the geopolitical strategies of a foreign power?

That is where the real battle lies.

And this is why, behind the announced Brussels spectacle, behind the slogans about a “Republic of the Rif,” and behind attempts to forge closer ties with the Polisario, the fundamental issue remains the territorial governance of Morocco and its ability to control its own national narrative.

The PNR may proclaim a republic in Brussels. But a republic proclaimed without territory, without an effective government, without international recognition, and above all without a demonstrated popular mandate remains, for the time being, a political construction in exile.

The real Republic of the Rif belongs to history. The purported restoration of that republic belongs, by contrast, to the realm of contemporary politics. Between the two lies the entire space of memory, identity, and geopolitics—a space that Morocco can no longer afford to allow its adversaries to define alone.