Between 670 and 700 A.D., Muslims conquered the Maghrib. In recent years, many North Africans migrated into western Europe. By the early 1980's, over half a million workers, including many Riffian, had moved there. In the later 1980's, however, the European labor market closed to new workers. In North Africa, the Riffian earn their livelihood from the fig and olive trees that cover the mountain slopes.
Income is supplemented through job opportunities in major cities of Europe.
Such jobs lure up to one-third of the male population for most of the year. For the unemployed Riffian, immigration to Europe was once an option, but that choice has declined in the late twentieth century due to restrictions on immigration. However, decades of immigration have left a large Riffian community in France . I was an avenue of migration. When the war ended, many remained in France.