Over 6,800 Moroccans granted Spanish citizenship

Moroccan expatriates who were granted Spanish citizenship were numbered at 6,831 in 2004, against only 1,921 in 2000, according to Spanish official figures.

Moroccans top foreigners who received the Spanish passport this year, ahead of Peru and Dominican nationals, and the number of Moroccan naturalization applications trebled in comparison with 2000.

The Spain-settled Moroccan community, 378,879-srong, is the second largest behind Ecuador.