Urbanisme, hygienisme et prostitution a Casablanca dans les annees 1920

As soon as France conquered Algiers in 1830, the French administration organized a coercive system aimed at controlling, regulating, concentrating, imprisoning, and capitalizing prostitution in North Africa. From military-campaign brothels to red-light districts (Bousbir in Casablanca or Abdallah Guèche in Tunis), the agents of colonial rule (police, doctors, and brothel keepers) transformed and marginalized the world of prostitution—especially in major urban areas. Both in image and in reality, the issue of prostitution reveals much about colonial society, indigenous as well as European, in particular through the lens of intercommunity sexuality. This article explores the regulatory system and the violence it produced, using the example of Bousbir in Casablanca during the 1920s.