King of Morocco since 1999
Mohammed VI (; born 21 August 1963) is King of Morocco. A member of the 'Alawi dynasty, he acceded to the throne on 23 July 1999, upon the death of his father, King Hassan II. 
Mohammed has vast business holdings across several economic sectors in Morocco. His net worth has been estimated at between US$ and over US$. In 2015, "Forbes" named him the richest king in Africa and the fifth wealthiest monarch in the world.
Upon ascending to the throne, Mohammed initially introduced a number of reforms and changed the family code, "Mudawana", granting women in Morocco more power. Leaked diplomatic cables from WikiLeaks in 2010 led to allegations of corruption in the court of Mohammed, implicating him and his closest advisors. In 2011, protests in Morocco that were considered part of the wider Arab Spring occurred against alleged government corruption. In response, Mohammed enacted several reforms and introduced a new constitution. These reforms were passed by public referendum on 1 July 2011.
Early life and education.
Mohammed was born on 21 August 1963 and was the second child and first son of Hassan II and his wife, Lalla Latifa. As their eldest son, he was heir apparent from birth. 
Mohammed's father was keen on giving him a religious and political education from an early age; at the age of four, he started attending the Quranic school at the Royal Palace. His educational routine commenced at 6 am with an hour-long recitation of the Quran, followed by formal lessons. He completed his first primary and secondary studies at the Collège Royal, a specialized college constructed within the fortified walls of the palace. Hassan II, desiring his son to experience competitive pressure, selected 12 classmates recognized for their intellect to accompany Mohammed in his studies. As depicted in "Le Roi prédateur", a 2012 biography authored by two French journalists, there is an account of Hassan instructing his aides to administer twenty lashes to Mohammed when he appeared to lag behind in his studies. 
According to a childhood friend, Mohammed harbored fantasies about the world beyond the palace walls and seldom ventured outside. One of his favorite songs was "Breakfast in America" by the English rock band Supertramp, which celebrates the allure of travel by jumbo jet. Mohammed excelled in languages.
Mohammed attained his Baccalaureate in 1981, before gaining a bachelor's degree in law at the Mohammed V University at Agdal in 1985. His research paper dealt with "the Arab-African Union and the Strategy of the Kingdom of Morocco in matters of International Relations". He was furthermore appointed president of the Pan Arab Games, and was commissioned a Brigadier General of the Royal Moroccan Army on 26 November 1985. Mohammed served as the Coordinator of the Offices and Services of the Royal Armed Forces until 1994.
In 1987, Mohammed obtained his first "Certificat d'Études Supérieures" (CES) in political sciences, and in July 1988 he obtained a "Diplôme d'Études Approfondies" (DEA) in public law. In November 1988, he trained in Brussels with Jacques Delors, the President of the European Commission.
According to a biography by Ferran Sales Aige, Mohammed's father received reports from his spies indicating that the young prince was visiting bars regularly. This led to a deepening dissatisfaction from the king towards his son. In a moment of despair, Hassan II was rumored to have described his son's behavior as a "chromosome error." Mohammed was sent to study law in Nice, with his activities closely monitored by the interior minister dispatched by his father. He obtained his PhD in law with distinction on 29 October 1993 from the French University of Nice Sophia Antipolis for his thesis on "EEC-Maghreb Relations". On 12 July 1994, he was promoted to the military rank of Major General, and that same year he became president of the High Council of Culture and Commander-in-Chief of the Royal Moroccan Army. 
According to the "New York Times", prior to ascending to the throne, Mohammed "gained a reputation as a playboy during the years he spent waiting in the wings, showing a fondness for fast cars and nightclubs." Over time, a noticeable estrangement developed between him and his father. He actively avoided encounters with Hassan II, even during his visits to Morocco. Instead, he frequently frequented Amnesia, an illicit club located underground in the capital city. According to "Le Roi prédateur", Mohammed's close friend from school, Fouad Ali El Himma, facilitated his visits to Amnesia by installing a private lift from his apartment above that descended directly to the club's premises.
Accession and early reign.
Mohammed ascended the throne on the death of his father on 23 July 1999. His official enthronement ceremony took place a week later. He made a televised address, promising to take on poverty and corruption, while creating jobs and improving Morocco's human rights record. His reformist rhetoric was opposed by Islamist conservatives, and some of his reforms angered fundamentalists. His initial directives also included the dismissal of his father's hardline interior minister, Driss Basri, and the appointment of some of his former classmates to key positions in the state bureaucracy. In February 2004, he enacted a new family code (Mudawana), which granted women more power.
In July 2004, Mohammed announced that Morocco would lift visa restrictions for Algerians, with Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika reciprocating the measure in 2005. Mohammed also created the Equity and Reconciliation Commission, which was tasked with researching human rights violations under Hassan II. This move was welcomed by many as promoting democracy, but was also criticized because the commission's reports could not name the perpetrators. According to human rights organizations, human rights violations are still common in Morocco.
Domestic policies.
2011 protests and constitutional reform.
The 2011 Moroccan protests, led by the 20 February Movement, were primarily motivated by corruption and general political discontentment, as well as by the hardships of the global economic crisis. The demonstrations were influenced by then-recent revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt which overthrew their respective leaders, and demands by protesters included "urgent" political and social reforms, including the relinquishment of some of the King's powers.
In a speech delivered on 9 March 2011, Mohammed said that parliament would receive "new powers that enable it to discharge its representative, legislative, and regulatory mission". In addition, the powers of the judiciary were granted greater independence from the king, who announced that he was impaneling a committee of legal scholars to produce a draft constitution by June 2011. On 1 July, voters approved a set of political reforms proposed by the king in a referendum.
The reforms consisted of the following:
Later developments.
In January 2017, Morocco banned the manufacturing, marketing, and sale of the burqa.
On 20 December 2022, Mohammed invited the Moroccan national football team to a reception at the Royal Palace in Rabat, following their reaching fourth place at the 2022 FIFA World Cup, and awarded the members of the team with the Order of the Throne. In March 2023, he was invited by president of the Confederation of African Football (CAF) Patrice Motsepe to receive the CAF's outstanding achievement award. During the awards ceremony in Kigali, Chakib Benmoussa, attending on behalf of the king, announced in a letter written by Mohammed that Morocco would join the Portugal–Spain 2030 FIFA World Cup bid as a co-host. The bid was unanimously approved by the FIFA Council in October.
In May 2023, Mohammed authorized the creation of a national public holiday for Yennayer (Berber New Year). In September 2023, following an earthquake in the Marrakesh–Safi region which killed nearly three thousand people, Mohammed visited hospitals to support victims and donated blood for the needy. Under his instructions, the royal holding Al Mada donated one billion dirhams for relief operations of quake-hit regions.
Western Sahara.
The Western Sahara conflict is considered one of the longest-running on the African continent. Morocco's official stance is that Western Sahara is an integral part of its territory, a stance adopted following the 1975 Green March.
Mohammed visited Western Sahara in 2006 and 2015. In March 2006, the government created the Royal Advisory Council for Saharan Affairs (CORCAS), an advisory committee which defends Morocco's claim over Western Sahara, and whose members are appointed by the king. The CORCAS proposed a plan for Western Sahara's autonomy, provided it remains under Moroccan sovereignty. In 2021, the CORCAS condemned the Sahrawi refugee camps in Tindouf, citing human rights concerns.
The Polisario Front, the main opposite party to the conflict, advocates for the establishment of an independent Sahrawi state. Morocco and the Polisario Front reached a ceasefire agreement in 1991, which included the establishment of a United Nations peacekeeping mission (MINURSO) to oversee and conduct a potential referendum on the future status of Western Sahara; to this day, such a referendum has never occurred.
In 2020, an escalation of the conflict began when Sahrawi protesters blocked a road connecting Guerguerat to sub-Saharan Africa via Mauritania. Morocco responded by intervening militarily to resume movement of people and goods through Guerguerat, which the Polisario Front said had violated the 1991 ceasefire agreement.
In 2021, Mohammed said that the "Moroccanness of the Sahara" remained an "indisputable fact", and asserted that Morocco was not negotiating over the territory, as the issue "never was - and never will be - on the negotiating table". The following year, he confirmed that the Western Sahara issue was "the lens through which Morocco looks at the world", and through which it "measures the sincerity of friendships and the efficiency of partnerships", while also calling on other countries "to clarify their positions" on the conflict "and reconsider them in a manner that leaves no room for doubt". This came as a number of countries backing Morocco's stance had established consulates in the Western Saharan cities of Laayoune and Dakhla beginning in late 2019, with a total of 28 as of 2023. As of July 2023, the Trump administration in the United States and the third Netanyahu government in Israel had officially recognized Moroccan sovereignty over the territory.
Foreign policy.
Mohammed and his sister, Princess Lalla Meryem, made a state visit to the White House in Washington, D.C. in June 2000, as guests of United States President Bill Clinton. The Bush administration designated Morocco as a major non-NATO ally in 2004. The two countries later signed a free-trade agreement in 2006, the only one of its kind between the United States and an African country, which was met with some criticism within Morocco due to increasing trade deficit.
Mohammed increasingly prioritized African relations in Morocco's foreign policy. In July 2016, Mohammed addressed the 27th African Union (AU) summit being held in Kigali, in which he requested Moroccan admission to the organization. Morocco had previously been a member of the AU's predecessor, the Organisation of African Unity, until it withdrew in 1984 in protest at the admission of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic. Mohammed justified his country's withdrawal saying that "the admission of a non-sovereign entity, by means of transgression and collusion" had prompted Morocco to "seek to avoid the division of Africa". Morocco was admitted to the African Union in January 2017.
Under his administration, Morocco developed partnerships with the Gulf Cooperation Council as well as other non-traditional great powers, mainly China and Russia, with the intention to diversify trade links and foreign investments and limit Morocco's traditional reliance on the European Union and other Western countries. The country offered to act as a mediator in the Libyan crisis and remained neutral in the Qatar diplomatic crisis.
Relations with neighbouring Algeria remained strained throughout his reign. Tensions intensified in the 2020s, primarily as a result of the Israel–Morocco normalization agreement and Guerguerat border clashes. In August 2021, Algeria accused Morocco of supporting the Movement for the self-determination of Kabylie, which it blamed for wildfires in northern Algeria, and later severed diplomatic relations with Morocco.
Morocco and Israel restored diplomatic relations on 10 December 2020, as part of the Israel–Morocco normalization agreement involving the United States, which at the same time recognized Morocco's sovereignty over Western Sahara. In June 2021, Mohammed congratulated Naftali Bennett on his election as Israeli prime minister. On the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People in November 2021, the king announced that Morocco would continue to push for a restart of Israeli–Palestinian peace negotiations. He called on both sides "to refrain from actions that obstruct the peace process".
In February 2023, Mohammed and his foreign minister Nasser Bourita visited Gabon, meeting with its president Ali Bongo and conducting a donation of