Maghrebis
Maghrebis or Maghrebians (Arabic: المغاربيون) are the inhabitants of the Maghreb region of North Africa.[13] It is a modern Arabic term meaning "Westerners", denoting their location in the western part of the Arab world. Maghrebis are predominantly of Arab and Berber origins.
Name[edit]
Maghrebis were known in ancient and medieval times as the Roman Africans or Moors. The word Moor is of Phoenician origin.[14] The etymology of the word can be traced back to the Phoenician term Mahurin, meaning "Westerners", from which the ancient Greeks derive Mauro, and from which Latin derives Mauri.[15]
The Arabic term maghrib (Arabic: مغرب) was given by the first Muslim Arab settlers to the recently conquered region located west of the Umayyad capital of Damascus in the 7th century AD.[16] It initially referred to the area extending from Alexandria in the east to the Atlantic Ocean in the west.[17]
Diaspora[edit]
France[edit]
Maghrebis have settled mainly in the industrial regions in France, especially in the Île-de-France and Mediterranean regions. Many famous French people like Édith Piaf,[23] Isabelle Adjani, Arnaud Montebourg, Alain Bashung, Dany Boon, Gérald Darmanin and many others have Maghrebi ancestry.
According to Michel Tribalat, a researcher at INED, there were more than 4.6 million people of Maghrebi origin (with at least one Maghrebi grandparent from Algeria, Morocco or Tunisia) living in France in 2011 (3 million in 1999).[24][25] Below is a table of population of Maghrebi origin in France in 2011, numbers are in thousands:
Note: for second generation born in France only individuals under 60 are taken into account.
According to Institut national de la statistique et des études économiques (the French National Institute for Statistics and Economic Studies), 16% of newborns in France between 2006 and 2008 have at least one Maghrebi grandparent born in the Greater Maghreb.[26]
In 2005, the percentage of young people under 18 of Maghrebi origin (at least one immigrant parent) were about 7% in Metropolitan France, 12% in Île-de-France, 13% in Lyon, 21% in Perpignan, 22% in the department of Seine-Saint-Denis, 37% in 18th arrondissement of Paris and 40% in several arrondissements of Marseille.[27][28]
According to other sources between 5 and 8 million people of Maghrebin origin live in France, and between 150,000 and 300,000 people of Maghrebin origin live in Canada.[29][30]