Sidi Slimane city

Sidi Slimane (in Arabic: سيدي سليمان [sidy slimān]) is a town in the North-West of Morocco. With a population of 84,709 inhabitants (2004) and 150,000 inhabitants (including the urban area), it is located some 60 km from the port city of Kénitra, in the recently created province of Sidi Slimane in the Rabat-Salé-Kénitra region - formerly Gharb-Chrarda-Beni Hssen.

On the banks of the Oued Beht, a tributary of the Sebou river, the small town is a very important agricultural centre for the rich Gharb plain, which produces and exports citrus fruits, cereals, beetroot and various vegetables.

Nearby towns are Sidi Kacem to the east, Meknès to the south-east, Khémisset to the south, Sidi Yahya El Gharb and Kénitra to the west, and Mechra Bel Ksiri, Souk El Arbaa and Ouezzane to the north.

During the French colonisation, Sidi Slimane was called "Le Petit Paris". Painters Hans Kleiss and Yvonne Kleiss-Herzig settled there in 1952.

The town of Sidi Slimane is known in Morocco for its fields and countryside.

In 2006, the Banque Populaire of Sidi Slimane was the bank that brought in the most money in Morocco, thanks to residents abroad investing in real estate and commercial projects.

Society
From the 1970s onwards, Sidi Slimane experienced a strong wave of immigration towards Southern European countries, mainly towards Spain and France, but also Belgium. Most of its inhabitants immigrated to the south-west of France, particularly along the Bordeaux - Toulouse - Montpellier axis, in order to work and thus achieve a stable financial situation. These countries, with a high demand for foreign labour in the agricultural and industrial sectors, offered fixed-term employment contracts, which encouraged workers from this town to expatriate for higher remuneration.

For those who did not have the chance to cross to the other side of the Mediterranean, they emigrated to the cities of Fès, Rabat, Tanger and especially Casablanca, due to the labour crisis affecting the town of Sidi Slimane.