Contenu du sommaire : Varia

Le Maroc serait, selon les Nations unies, le premier producteur et exportateur mondial de haschich. La région septentrionale du Rif abrite en effet des dizaines de milliers d'hectares de cultures de cannabis à partir desquelles est produit le haschich marocain, manne dont la suppression programmée constitue un véritable défi pour les autorités marocaines. Cet article établit le contexte historique, culturel, politique et économique de la culture du cannabis dans la région afin de mieux comprendre comment cette activité économique, qui s'est très largement développée au cours des deux dernières décennies, a permis d'y maintenir un certain statu quo socio-économique et politique. According to the United Nations, Morocco is most likely the world's first producer and exporter of hashish. Tens of thousands hectares of cannabis grow in the northern Rif region of the country and make possible a large hashish production largely exported to the European market. The Rif economy and its socio-economic and political stability seem to depend on this crop – a fact that poses a major problem for both the Moroccan state and the European Union, since hashish production and consumption are illegal in Morocco and in most of the EU countries, including France. This paper aims at explaining the economic, political, cultural and historical context of cannabis cultivation in the Rif Mountains of northern Morocco. It stresses how this economic activity, which has grown considerably over the last twenty years, has permitted the maintenance of a type of socio-economic and political status quo. Although illegal, the tolerance of the cannabis crop is an alternative to an underdevelopment against which the authorities have taken no or very little action. There is little doubt that cannabis has stabilised the economy of a region all but excluded from national development. However, the Rif remains faced with a fragile ecology, loss of traditional farming know-how and international pressure demanding elimination of drug plants in developing countries. Indeed, following the publication of the first United Nations survey on cannabis in Morocco (2003), the Moroccan state can no longer ignore the region's economic and social problems. Therefore, this paper warns of the ‘time bomb' that lack of management of the situation has created.

The Tamil diaspora: places and territories in Île-de-France In this article, we use the word diaspora as a social category of membership, and a tool manipulated by actors to create a collective subject across divisions. Our analysis examines the factors of inclusion in trying to understand the mechanisms by which the Tamil Nadu, Tamil Eelam, and Tamil organisations are trying desperately to include their communities in exile in a unifying and homogeneous set that they call Tamil diaspora. In order to clarify this process of attachment that involving memory, filiation and affiliation, we will illustrate our subject by the study of the Tamil's anchorage points in Île-de-France. In the first part, we will see what differentiates the diasporic identity from the others collective identity. The second part will qualify this link, which becomes a support of solidarity conceptually doubtful between nationalism and selectivity, to create a Tamil transnational identity. The last part will hold a reflection on levels of belonging identity, focusing on the study of an ethnic neighbourhood: La Chapelle, located on the 10th and the 18th arrondissements (administrative subdivision) of Paris.

Elections are at the centre of the democratic process. This article intends to study the democratic representation through the residence places of candidates of the main parties inside the Belgian Brussels-capital Region on two main perspectives. First, we raise the question of democratic representativeness, notably when it concerns local representatives entitled to take decisions concerning districts. Indeed, the socio-geographic selection of the candidates and elected representatives is very strong. Second, this socio-geographic selection also enables us to compare the profile of the different parties. These socio-geographic profiles reflect the socio-political recompositions in the middle classes, for example the differentiation between high middle classes parties (Christian-democrats and liberal parties) and intellectual middle classes parties (Socialist and green parties).

The emergence and assertiveness of world-class cities tend to transform - at local levels - the shapes of institutional organizations that are in place. Indeed, new management territories for metropolitan areas provide an answer to the local populations increasing demands and also a reaction to competitions between world-class cities, whether those territories are the results of a voluntary cooperation between municipalities or whether they come from States projects. In this global context of institutional change, the example of Luxembourg appears to be quite exceptional, and could even represent a model of stability. Through the study of the links between central and local authorities, and through the description of relationships between business elites and political leaders, this article attempts to analyze the stability which can be observed in the political organization in Luxembourg. This stability has to been interpreted as a proof of the effectiveness of the governance in place. Indeed, a change in an institutional organization has to be interpreted as an answer to a crisis situation. More than a simple case study, the example of Luxembourg represents a laboratory for the analysis of State and communal resistance in a world-class cities' globalized economy, which generally leads to decentralization and cooperation between municipalities. However, Luxembourg remains a very specific example for several reasons. It is a very small country, with only 2 586 square kilometers for 476 000 inhabitants, and just one major city. Moreover, as opposed to other European countries, the institutional distance between political and business leaders is reduced. As a result, the benefits which, in other countries, are generally provided by the emergence of a metropolitan governance can be found in the whole Luxembourg national territory.

This paper looks at the recent illicit cocaine trafficking geographical and geopolitical trends, from the South american producer regions to the western markets, through the various spaces filling this commercial gap into the Caribbean and Africa. New patterns have been emerging since two decades: production activities have been increasingly taking place in Colombia without being completely eradicated from Bolivia and Peru, consummation has been steadily increasing in Europe as well as in South America and Africa, while trafficking operations were blooming around the Caribbean and in Africa. The main reason for those developments is the balloon effect, the shift of trafficking networks according to day-to-day repression targets. Those movements have been eased off by the actual prohibition politics lack of will, although much energy has been put into the discourses surrounding them. This gap between talks and actions allows us to be very sceptical when it comes to a repression often used as a smoke screen to mask major geopolitical interventions.

Arab Gulf countries are now one of the main destination for international migrations at a world level. Although it is difficult to estimate precisely and surely how many people come and stay in the Gulf Cooperation Council States, one can be sure that foreigners are a numerical majority in the active and in the total population of this part of the world. As the Arab component of this immigration is going thinner, Southern Asia remains the first geographical origin of immigrants at all levels of qualification and not only unskilled workers, but a diversification of the recruiting areas is worth to be noted. What is the policy of the local authorities to face the changing migratory realities in the context of globalization? Are the measures concerning the statute of the foreigners more or less similar from a country to the other or are they different? While the governments reinforce a policy to increase the participation of Nationals in the labour force, is the adaptation of laws and practises observed since the beginning of the present decade the sign of a real change towards a better recognition of the contribution of foreigners to the development of the country?