Martin Tronquit was a graduate of one of France’s elite business schools living the high-flying Paris lifestyle both he and his wife had dreamt about – an existence made up of long days at work followed by meals at expensive restaurants with friends. But after being briefly transferred by his company to Morocco, Tronquit and his wife, Sabrina Stansfield, decided to take a gamble and give up their comfortable but somewhat predictable lives. In 2010, they quit their jobs – his in consulting and hers in real estate – moved to Casablanca and teamed up with a Moroccan counterpart to co-found their own international business intelligence company, Infomineo. Although the couple gave up Paris’s host of theatres, museums and cinemas, they have discovered that living abroad has made them closer as a family, especially since the birth of their daughter, Olivia, in 2011. It has also drawn them into a circle of friends, both expat and local, whom they cannot imagine living without. Here, just three years later, they feel like they are part of the city. “We started the project, chose the house together, and the friends that we have are all common friends,” says Tronquit, 32, who grew up in sleepy Provence before moving to Paris to study at the École des Hautes Études Commerciales, where he met his half-British wife. “Here we have fewer friends in terms of numbers, but if we don’t see them for two weeks it would feel very strange.” In Casablanca, the dining scene is becoming more diverse every year, with an abundance of French and fusion restaurants. Traditional souks are filled with local spices and scrumptious produce. “Moroccans – along with the Italians and the French – are the few people in the world who are obsessed with food,” says Tronquit. The city’s appeal also has a lot to do with the weather and its location. High temperatures average about 26C in the summer and 8C in winter. And, perched on the northern end of Africa’s Atlantic coast, the noisy commercial hub lies less than three hours by plane from Paris and only seven-and-a-half hours from New York. Forget smoky images of the isolated wartime backwater immortalised by Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman in the classic 1942 film. Today’s Casablanca is a sprawling postmodern metropolis of 3.5m people fully integrated into the contemporary world. Shiny glass-and-steel corporate towers nudge elegantly ageing French colonial apartment blocks, while favelas on its outskirts are home to al-Qaeda militants and criminal gangs. The more pleasant, verdant and serene capital, Rabat, is just an hour away by train. Architectural jewels like Fez and Marrakesh, as well as seaside resort havens like Agadir, are easily reachable by car, train or plane. “You can take a flight on a Friday morningand within hours you’re in the desert in the middle of an oasis,” says Tronquit. “You can get into your car and go kite surf on the ocean in minutes. You can take a four-hour drive to Fez, which is beautiful. The long weekends here are great.” Tronquit’s start-up, Infomineo, looks set to grow to 60 employees by the end of the year. Just as in Dubai or Singapore, Morocco’s business-friendly policies and seaside culture means a foreigner heading up a company is not unusual. “It’s a place where you can lead a company and the Moroccans appreciate what you’re bringing to the country and you don’t feel like a total interloper,” he says. “They are open to you and to the US and Europe. They look positively at the outside world.” There are certainly drawbacks to living and working in Morocco. The country’s bureaucracy remains difficult. The process of getting a residency permit takes hours of going from one drab government building to another in search of stamps and signatures from officials who seem perpetually at lunch or prayers. Though Moroccans are among the most tolerant people in the Arab world, the country remains a conservative Muslim society. Tronquit’s wife, a 31-year-old blonde, must watch how she dresses in public. “The level of social control is very high,” Tronquit says. “If you’re not dressed right people will stare at you.” The couple’s rented two-storey, three-bedroom villa in the leafy Val D’Anfa district of Casablanca includes a small swimming pool and a covered garage and costs a fraction of what the couple would have to pay in any major western city. Grocery stores lie within walking distance of their home and a Carrefour hypermarket is a short drive away. Tronquit says it is the 10 minutes it takes him or his wife to reach their office that has become the real draw. Friends in Paris still sometimes spend two hours a day commuting. In contrast, Mr Tronquit and his wife sometimes hop home to have lunch with their daughter when she comes home from day care. Despite crime in some parts of the city and very occasional terrorist attacks, most recently in Marrakesh in 2011, Mr Tronquit says he feels completely safe. In this close-knit culture, the men playing dominoes on the pavement will keep an eye out for the children of the neighbourhood. “On this street, everyone knows Olivia,” says Mr Tronquit. “Every doorman says ‘hello’.”
Financial Times
Paris businessman who quit his job for dream role in Casablanca
By Borzou Daragahi
