They will never achieve their goals! 1/2
During the Battle of Verdun in 1916, in World War I, French General Robert Nivelle and others used the slogan “No pasarán!” (They shall not pass!) to galvanize troops in the face of assaults. This same slogan of defensive resistance was immortalized during the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) by Dolores Ibárruri, known as La Pasionaria, leader of the Communist Party. In a famous radio speech on July 19, 1936, she shouted “No pasarán!” to defend Madrid against Franco's troops. The popularized slogan became the cry of resistance for all anti-fascists around the world.
In the same spirit as the famous anti-fascist battle cry “No pasarán!”, which expresses fierce resistance to the military aggression of Franco's forces, and in a very different context marked by wars of disinformation and manipulation, the word Real, carried by the Royal Cabinet's communiqué of January 22, 2026, affirms an equally firm and serene conviction: “They will never achieve their goals!”, thus raising a rhetorical barrier against hostile designs directed against Morocco. Through the majestic “They will never achieve their goals!”, this performative retort against orchestrated discord galvanizes Moroccan resistance, transcends the post-CAN crisis, and illustrates a highly refined royal discursive strategy.
Reassuring crisis communication
In urgent or highly sensitive situations (disasters, scandals, tensions), crisis communication is a decisive lever of symbolic power for any political leader. Beyond operational measures aimed at minimizing damage, this type of communication determines the ability to regain narrative control in the face of raw passions and competing narratives, to reframe collective emotions (anger, fear, disappointment) toward constructive affections, and to preserve legitimacy by transforming the perceived threat into a demonstration of visionary authority. The stakes are higher: whoever gives meaning to the crisis governs, whoever suffers it fades away.
In Morocco, the actual management of crisis situations traditionally favors direct instructions to the competent authorities, as well as urgent working sessions dedicated to examining the situation and adopting the relevant measures, reserving public discursive communication for major strategic challenges.
Thus, in the face of critical situations such as the delay in the implementation of the “Al Hoceima Manarat Al Mutawasit” regional development program in October 2017, the inaction for more than five months linked to the failure of Abdalilah Benkirane's consultations to form a government in March 2017, the effects of the Al Haouz earthquake in September 2023, or the demonstrations of the GenZ212 movement in October 2025, the Sovereign, by virtue of his constitutional prerogatives, manages the situation through decisions or High Instructions to the institutions concerned, without necessarily resorting to direct communication.
The King thus acts and reacts to sensitive situations through concrete decisions and precise instructions, without excessive media exposure or public discourse, leaving it to the Royal Cabinet to issue timely press releases. This discreet approach prioritizes operational effectiveness over media impact, reserving direct public statements for major symbolic and strategic challenges.
Two emblematic moments illustrate this exceptional approach: the speech on March 9, 2011, on constitutional reform, which, in the explosive context of the Arab uprisings, constituted an enlightened and decisive rhetorical intervention, transforming a potentially destabilizing crisis into a new perspective for reform.
The Royal Cabinet's post-CAN 2025 communiqué, published in a highly sensitive context marked by complex hybrid sporting, media, and geopolitical challenges, also follows this same logic of exception: here, the challenge transcends the operational framework to achieve national unity and African identity, which is why the King, through his Cabinet, speaks to the nation and the continent.
Four days after the tumultuous final of the 35th CAN, the Royal Cabinet's statement stands out as a masterful response to a major information crisis. Through its exemplary responsiveness, its strategic protection of the national reputation, and its mastery of symbolic challenges, it fully embodies the canons of perfect crisis communication.
By first celebrating the “historic success” and paying tribute to all those who contributed, His Majesty the King sets the stage for collective success. Then, with a precise rhetorical gesture, he unapologetically names the regrettable incidents and highly deplorable behaviors that marred the great African soccer celebration. This dual stance—proactive celebration and measured condemnation—points the way to royal crisis management: denouncing without dramatizing, dispassionate without minimizing, while illustrating “hybrid” crisis communication: sporting on the surface, diplomatic at its core.
The Royal Cabinet's statement, published after the 35th CAN organized by Morocco, thus offers a protective narrative framework and projects a positive way out of the crisis. In this way, it illustrates exceptional rhetorical mastery in the management of a hybrid sports crisis. Despite the defeat in the final against Senegal and the incidents that marked it, this text transforms the event into a national and pan-African triumph, through an Aristotelian balance between sovereign ethos, collective pathos, and strategic logos.
Aristotelian rhetoric of soft power
The Royal Cabinet's statement masterfully uses Aristotle's rhetorical arsenal, combining ethos (credibility), pathos (emotions), and logos (logic) to appease collective emotions, defend the Kingdom's image, and reaffirm its pan-African leadership, thus channeling sporting disappointment into shared national pride.
- Ethos and Royal Authority:
The statement constructs a persuasive image of itself by basing its ethos on three fundamental pillars:
1. The Visionary King: Phrases such as “In accordance with the Sovereign's enlightened vision” anchor the message in irrefutable institutional legitimacy, reinforcing confidence in an infallible source. The verbs attributed to the King – “would like to express,” “extends his congratulations,” “remains convinced” – project a transcendent sovereignty that acknowledges the crisis without dwelling on it. This institutional verticality, reinforced by formal phrases, positions His Majesty as the supreme arbiter above football passions.
2. The reliable “Moroccan model”: the text accredits the Kingdom through concrete collective achievements – the national team's ranking as the “8th best team in the world,” the result of a “proactive sports and infrastructure policy” – transforming performance into tangible proof of exemplary governance.
3. The pan-African commitment: Morocco positions itself as “a great African country, faithful to the spirit of fraternity,” deploying “ambitious” partnerships that counter criticism with an altruistic and continental leadership stance.
The Royal Cabinet's statement, referring to the Sovereign's words, protects Morocco's image as an exemplary host, focusing on this “historic success” that is also African.
- Pathos and collective mobilization
Pathos, also intended to persuade, targets national sentiments—pride, gratitude, unity—to elicit emotional support. His Majesty the King's thanks to all components of the nation, his congratulations to millions of Moroccans, and his praise of the historic success and world ranking of the Atlas Lions transcend the post-final feeling of frustration and transform it into a national achievement and pan-African pride. Expressions such as “admirably,” “with fervor,” and “a month of popular joy and sporting excitement” evoke a vibrant collective impulse that transmutes the CAN into a national celebration, reappropriating the advances (infrastructure, 8th place in the world) as the fruit of a merged national effort.
The pathos, in addition to promoting pride, defuses disappointment: the “regrettable incidents” of the final are minimized and perceived as temporary in the face of collective success: “once the passion has passed, inter-African fraternity will naturally resume its primacy.”
In the same context, the Royal Cabinet's statement contrasts “resentment and discord” with “closeness cultivated over centuries,” thus appeasing tensions in order to refocus on “African success” and “the splendor of Africa and its soccer.” This pathos evokes a sense of continental belonging that reinforces Moroccan identity as a vector of positive emotions, thus creating an emotional catharsis around a victorious narrative despite the sporting defeat.
- Logos and diplomatic restraint:
The logos in the rhetoric of this statement structures a persuasive causality that links sporting success to good governance, and controversies to vain “hostile designs.” Within this reasoning, “excellent results” are logically attributed to a “long-term vision” and a “unique and effective Moroccan model that places the citizen at the center,” with evidence such as infrastructure and the “patriotic choice” of young Moroccan dual nationals.
It also draws a distinction between incident and overall success: despite “regrettable actions,” the text argues that “this Moroccan success is also an African success,” prioritizing the positive balance (organization, projection) over an isolated episode. In line with this logical reasoning, the King is convinced that smear campaigns and hostile designs will prove futile, thanks to the lucidity of the people who “know how to discern and will not be swayed by resentment or discord.” This royal logos thus deploys a coherent line of argument that anticipates and defuses objections. Despite the firmness shown towards deplorable behavior, the lexical sobriety neutralizes resentment and hostile designs, preserving continental soft power while counteracting rival narratives.
The communiqué issued by the Royal Cabinet stands out for its rhetorical balance: the ethos frames the message, the pathos mobilizes hearts, and the logos makes it irrefutable. At the heart of the post-CAN tensions—incidents in the final, disinformation campaigns—the Royal communiqué neutralizes adverse narratives while deploying a masterful strategy of Moroccan soft power.
Masterful rhetorical strategy
Language is not simply a vector of information, but the primary instrument of any rhetorical strategy: it constructs ethos through a valorizing lexicon, arouses pathos through emotional adjectives, and structures logos with performative verbs.
How does the Royal Cabinet's statement use language to articulate ethos, pathos, and logos in its rhetorical strategy for post-CAN crisis management? Let us highlight in particular the use of verbs and adjectives, which reveal its discursive mastery.
In the text of the statement (442 words), we can distinguish about twenty main verbs that provide essential information on the subject.
These full predicative verbs, with the King, the Kingdom, the Moroccans, CAN2025, African brotherhood, and hostile designs as their grammatical subjects, form the semantic and narrative core of the communiqué and convey the structuring meaning of the message transmitted. Without going into an exhaustive analysis of all these verbs, we will focus particularly on those whose grammatical subject is the Sovereign, as they reveal with particular intensity the articulation between royal ethos and crisis management strategy.
- The verbs that structure the message
The communiqué attributes three verbs of action and authority to King Mohammed VI, subtly articulating his ethos as sovereign above the crisis while he dominates it. Two categories can be distinguished: on the one hand, directional verbs of downward communication: “would like to express his gratitude,” “would like to particularly congratulate,” “conveys his congratulations”: these performative verbs position the King as a benevolent initiator who offers recognition and gratitude from the top down. They recall the verticality of power (ethos), institutionalize national pride, and transform royal gratitude into collective validation.
On the other hand, there is the assertive verb of cognitive authority (remains convinced) that projects an unshakeable conviction in the face of the Moroccan people's reaction to “hostile designs.” The Royal Cabinet's statement could have adopted a more prescriptive formulation, such as “His Majesty the King, may God assist him, expects the Moroccan people to discern and not be carried away by resentment and discord”; this hypothesis would have placed the Sovereign in a legitimate position of prescriber who sets the norm and formulates a demand. Such paternalistic rhetoric of warning, classic among certain political leaders who present themselves as corrective guides, contrasts with the Royal approach.
By way of comparison, President Emmanuel Macron had resorted to this strategy in a speech in which he warned: “So, my friends, make no mistake: doing all this, building an independent France in a powerful Europe, is not a foregone conclusion.”
The Head of State positions himself as someone who sees clearly and is alert, who is determined to correct the perception “make no mistake” in order to avoid the wrong choice, while the performative presupposition of the Royal Cabinet's statement is distinguished by transforming a directive slogan into a confident axiomatic statement: the Sovereign “remains convinced that hostile designs will never achieve their ends, that the Moroccan people know how to discern and will not be led by rancor or discord.” This expresses an absolute faith in the unshakeable maturity of the people. Far from imposing a crude vertical order that places the people as mere executors, the royal message establishes this wisdom as the constitutive essence of the nation—an “I know they will” replacing “do it.”
This masterful inversion gives the speech a dual performative and epistemic confidence: performative, it anticipates virtuous action (knowing how to discern) as already accomplished by a mature people; epistemic, it links sovereign wisdom (the King remains convinced) with popular maturity (the people know how to discern) in a chain of cognitive values.
The sophisticated statement “The Moroccan people will not be led astray” thus operates on a virtuous presupposition: it posits the intrinsic maturity of the recipient as evidence. This elegant rhetoric forges an implicit cognitive complicity, making bad choices structurally unimaginable, as they are incompatible with the sublimated identity.
Since then, a masterful discursive strategy has been expressed, in which the King is not content to react to the crisis, but transcends it through an eloquent triptych: naming, valuing, reassuring.