close friends and relations consisted mainly of his pied-noir cronies.
During the rebellion in Marseille, he evacuated his family to Paris where he observed the creation of the Autonomous Region. He could not help thinking that his comfortable life under the Mediterranean sunshine and his position at the Water and Environmental Authority were definitely lost.
The situation was chaotic and the Autonomous Region was temporarily taken under the authority of the European Federation that had the responsibility of re-establishing the normal functioning of authority and public services. The loss of the key personnel in the administration and utilities was dramatic; there were few volunteers amongst the French. Ibrani, understanding the situation, seized the opportunity and was detached by the French Government as executive adviser to the President of the Committee du Salut National, which was in effect the Provisional Government of the Algharb Autonomous Region, to advise on the reorganisation of the region’s administration and finances.
Ibrani was well equipped to take advantage of the situation; he spoke fluent Arabic having been born and raised in Rabat, the capital of Morocco. His experience in the administration of regional bodies, coupled with his degrees in engineering and political science, provided him with the necessary academic achievements that were sufficient to counter any opposition accusations as to his administrative capacities.
He was proud of his pied-noir origins, which he had not really been aware of before his arrival in Paris. For Ibrani, Morocco was a splendid country; his father had never ceased to describe it as being abandoned by the French. Though with the arrival of the Islamists to power and the proclamation of the Caliphate, Morocco was lost forever for the Ibranis.
The King as spiritual leader of the believers had accepted, against his will, the instauration of an Islamic state. The twenty or thirty thousand active fundamentalists of Gamaat al Ismaleya and the Jihad Islamic movement who had been imprisoned for plotting against the King were released after riots, which had shaken the monarchy to its very foundations.
The King survived a little over a year; his life coming to a violent end one hot sunny morning before the Grande Mosque of Casablanca with the flash of a sword and the cries of a delirious crowd as the royal blood gushed out, ending a dynasty that had reigned over Morocco for centuries.
The King was replaced as spiritual leader by the Grande Imam of Dar el Beida, who was backed by the violent and unstable General Walid bin Choukri, the leader of the religious-military coup.
The days that followed the regicide saw a panic never before witnessed in the Maghrib. Under Choukri a reign of terror spread as the army clamped down on the traitors; the upper and middle classes, accused of stealing the nation’s wealth as they sought to flee the country, their properties were confiscated, businesses nationalised and bank accounts seized.
When Ibrani left Paris for Algharb, it seemed in many ways a return to the source, almost like a return to Morocco. He instantly took advantage of the situation, manipulating the inexperienced and elderly president, whose appointment was nothing more than an interim arrangement pending the organisation of elections. With the help of his pied noir-cronies, whom Ibrani placed without difficulty in key positions, the seizure of power was a mere formality.
He easily took on the role of a pasha, surrounded by sycophants and subservient officials. He was courted by the ex-Neo French, who had not hesitated to openly proclaim themselves as Arabs, and who, though they had acquired power, were disorganised and without a clear vision of the future.
As the son of a pied-noir father and a Moroccan mother, Ibrani understood better than most the rules of intrigue and how to play the different factions off against each other, thus advancing his own ambition. However, fearing intrigue he soon developed suspicion of those around him, verging on paranoia, imagining enemies and plots around every corner, without the slightest qualm he proceeded to eliminate all of those who opposed his ambitions and consolidating his power. His Arab upbringing served him in his new role, those who were not his friends were his enemies and he excluded from authority all those he perceived as not sharing his views. In effect he had the mind of an oriental with the veneer of French culture, with the selfishness and arrogance of a pied-noir.
He was boastful and vaunted his power, exaggerating his influence in Paris and his personal relations with Charles d’Albignac, who in reality despised him as an upstart, a mere pied-noir and a profiteer, taking advantage of France's temporary weakness. Ibrani liked to pretend that his voice was the most listened to in the capitals of the Levant and the Caliphates.
He quietly ingratiated himself to the government in Paris, realising that without them Algharb was unviable. He gained their support whilst assuming the style and appearance of an oriental potentate in Algharb, to the amusement and exasperation of le Martel who derisively called him a pantomime Alibaba.
Ibrani, who had taken the name Hassan as a tribute to the King of Morocco who was a hero of his youth, now instituted a personality cult; his image was omnipresent, in government offices, in schools and in public places. He was declared the father of Algharb. Elections were quickly forgotten and the opposition was gagged by methods reminiscent of a Middle Eastern dictatorship. The discomfort of France was observed from the Federation with a mixture of foreboding and barely hidden glee; France was bound by the Evian agreement, which any overt intervention.
In effect, Ibrani reigned as the puppet of the Paris government, neutralising the threat of a politised Islam and assuring a secular state. His knowledge and his political astuteness won the respect of the warring factions that constituted the Committee de Salut National. He surrounded himself with a tight network of personal friends and sympathisers, including high-level officials and members of the police and paramilitary forces who were close to Paris. For the most part his cronies were pied-noirs, Jews or interested parties, including businessmen of North African descent who felt more at ease with an Arabic speaking pied-noir, whose interests were more transparent than those of the ex-FLN socialist gangsters who had fled Algiers and never known life in France.
Ibrani also had the support of the numerous sons of the Harkis, Algerians who had fought for France during Algeria’s war of independence, in exchange for privileged positions for their community in the public services of Algharb. They responded with enthusiasm to Ibrani’s offer after the generations of sufferance in France, stigmatised and rejected as third rate citizens, their loyalty to France had been barely acknowledge generations after the events.
The ineffective first President of the Committee de Salut National, Karim Lamrani, had owed his position to a political compromise between the European and African tendencies, and had been no more than a symbol adroitly guided by Ibrani, for the good of the Autonomous Region.
The sudden death of the sick and aging President brought the risk of seeing Algharb transformed into another Beirut or Gaza, which neither France nor the Federation would tolerate
Lamrani’s death arrived at a moment of political crisis provoked by strikes and riots. The leaders of the mobs had designated Paris as responsible for the Autonomous Region’s disastrous economic situation. Ibrani, with the backing of paramilitary forces, took control; attributing himself extraordinary powers to direct the forces of law and order to restore calm.
Martial law was declared and Ibrani was appointed interim President by the Committee for the duration of the crisis. His strength lay with the backing of the paramilitary forces, the business community and the middle classes, who had no wish to lose their privileges in a useless civil war. He did not refuse the help of the French secret service, which defending the interests of Paris discretely his path smoothed to power, in a situation where the risks of destabilisation by the Caliphate and other enemies of France were great.
The only possible opposition was disorganised and preoccupied by fighting a fruitless war of factions. With the connivance of Paris, Ibrani proclaimed the independence of Jaziirat al Gharb with Medina Hurriya as it
s capital, bringing to an immediate halt any opposition and his nomination as President of the Committee de Salut National. It was a coup de theatre that diverted the attention of the mob from the woes of the Autonomous Region’s woes. Any thought of elections were suspended during the state of emergency and then put back to an indefinite date.
The proclamation of independence was no more than a fiction, due to the crisis that Paris could not afford and which in its own time would repair. The opposition was stifled, the media was censored, and the entry and exit to the territory were subject to draconian controls. Ibrani’s regime tracked down all religious fanaticism, all tendentious textbooks, all oriented lessons and anything that was politically tendentious.
When the international press accused the regime of racism towards former French citizens, he replied, “Racists! Not at all!” But nevertheless the system had changed and the oppressed had become the oppressors.
The key figures of the government were known as Fassis, a clique of Moroccans close to Hassan bin Ibrani, chosen for their complaisant attitudes to the methods he employed and his objectives. The Algerian tendencies held the less politically sensitive cabinet posts