How great was our sadness when we learned recently, my wife, my children, and myself, of the death of Father Georges Couturier. He was, for my family, the only true friend of France in Morocco.

Father Couturier, a doctor of medicine, was, like the current Pope Francis, elected to the Vatican, a Jesuit Christian. He worked in actions in favor of the poor. He was, moreover, a very cultured man, very open, and loved playing the cello. Exchanges with him were very pleasant and fruitful. He never sought to influence his interlocutors with a view to converting them to his religion. Speaking Arabic well and even mastering its writing, he had great respect for Muslims and their customs. He lived for nearly five decades in Morocco. He never left the Témara School of Agriculture (commonly called Cidera) where he had settled in 1965 as a trainer of Moroccan technicians in food hygiene. When the activity of this school ceased, he chose to remain there and continue to help the surrounding population with a view to improving their living conditions. He occupied, until his death, the position of head of the Social and Education Centre of the National Mutual Aid located inside the School of Agriculture. He indeed dedicated his life to regularly taking care of the population of Témara in general and that of Mers Al Kheïr in particular. One of his great battles was the relocation operation of the "Al Batoul" shanty town.

As a doctor, he welcomed daily in the National Mutual Aid Centre, for a symbolic dirham (!), all the sick, men, women, and children, wishing to be examined and to receive medical treatments. Not only did he provide them with care, but he often offered them, free of charge, medicines for their treatment. His fight focused on the problems of malnutrition of young children by ensuring them total care. He also ensured the healing and medical follow-up of burn victims. Only this last care remained provided at the Centre after his death.

Father Couturier had, moreover, maintained the practice of country doctors in the sense that he traveled in person to homes to examine his patients. When the latter needed a diagnosis from specialists, he accompanied them himself in his vehicle to specialist doctors who were part of his wide network of friends in Rabat-Salé.

Other institutional and non-institutional partners, such as the Diplomatic Spouses Circle, the "Amalouna" Association, the embassies of European countries, notably France, Spain, and Switzerland, and other Asian countries (Japan, Korea,...) did not fail to provide their financial and material support to contribute, in collaboration with Father Couturier, to the alleviation of the social problems of the populations of Mers El Kheïr.

As for the National Mutual Aid, it paid him an annual subsidy for the management of the Social and Education Centre. With the help of a small team of Christian sisters and Moroccan women, he managed to have impeccable management of the Centre. It was customary to say of the members of his team that they work like ants. In the administration of the National Mutual Aid, it has always been considered that the operation of the Mers Al Kheïr Centre is the model par excellence for all other centres across the country. Apart from medical and hygiene activities, the Centre also provides school support activities for children, the fight against illiteracy, and vocational training for young girls. It often happened, moreover, that the officials of the National Mutual Aid brought their guests from foreign delegations to visit the Social Centre of the late Couturier.

The deceased spent his year-end and summer holidays in France, close to his loved ones, notably his brother, a law professor, who had also, at the beginning of his career, taught for a year or two in Morocco, at the Agdal Faculty of Law. Father Couturier was in the habit of writing and systematically sending souvenir postcards to his friends in Morocco to show them that he never forgot them, even during his vacation periods.

His passing is a great loss for the populations of Témara and Mers El Kheïr. It is also a great loss for Morocco as a whole. He was one of those people who became very attached to Morocco and the Moroccans and who did not want to leave them. Goodbye, friend.