A very great number of craftsmen live as a whole Rabat-Salé urban. One hopes there more than 6000 weaving looms!
The corporations born at the time medieval disappeared small with small, for various sociopolitic reasons. Under Protectorate, were born from the centers of studies of the craft industry and the co-operatives. Since independence, the State was concentrated on this problem touching with the popular culture and employment; the Ministry for the Craft industry and the Social Affairs was created to encourage and develop the artisanal production and to ensure the safeguarding of old trades.
The craft industry requires technical skills and artistic transmitted to the wire of the generations, tools and a market. The old corporations had the concern of the formation and the outlets for trade. But the appearance of the industrialized products, their prices often very low, always threaten these products hand made…
The Ministry created co-operatives on the whole of the territory. There are approximately 180 of them which counts nearly 10000 members. They are centers of formation and production. Local customs were built by the State. In some, the orders are received, studied, centralized, carried out, exported, according to established prices and with labels of guarantee. The craftsmen can there consult files, put questions, receive councils. The apprentices are trained according to the traditional methods.
But if one wants to discover the souks, to lose itself in the médinas, to see the vestiges of the districts where lived the corporations, temples of human ingeniousness, places of exchanges, points of meetings of the men and civilizations, if one the last gleams of this almost fairy-like world, it wants to collect is necessary to be unaware of the co-operatives and to go to find the craftsman in his graver. Of at his place, even if it is simply said to him hello, one will not bring back only one object out of wool or leather but the memory of a true human contact, proud and accessible glance and smile of the craftsman (who is not that of the merchant) that truths amateurs of the souks can meet and deserve.