The fifth edition of the Toulouse-Tarfaya Aerial Rally made its emblematic stopover at Tarfaya on Sunday, as 17 light aircraft carrying 43 participants from France, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom completed one of the most evocative legs of a route that retraces the historic path of the French Aéropostale across the Iberian Peninsula and down Morocco’s Atlantic coast.
The rally, running from May 14 to 23 and recognized by the Swiss-based International Aeronautical Federation, covers nearly 6,000 kilometers in ten days at speeds between 180 and 300 kilometers per hour.
The itinerary traces a lineage of extraordinary aviation history. Nine stages connect Toulouse to Requena in Spain, then to Tangier, Essaouira, and Tarfaya on the outward leg, before continuing to Tan-Tan, Ouarzazate, and Fez, and returning via Almería and Alicante. Tarfaya — historically Cap Juby — is the spiritual center of the rally, not merely a waypoint.
It was there that Antoine de Saint-Exupéry served as airbase chief for eighteen months between 1927 and 1929, an experience that shaped the imagination from which Le Petit Prince would eventually emerge. This year marks the 80th anniversary of the book’s first publication in France, giving the stopover an additional layer of commemorative significance.
Co-organizer Thierry Sentouss described the rally as a living link between Toulouse and Tarfaya that perpetuates a shared memory between French pilots and the local population. He noted that since 1983, the Toulouse-Saint-Louis du Sénégal rally — the event’s predecessor on the same route — has allowed more than 2,000 people to discover Tarfaya. The 2026 edition extends this tradition with a rich cultural and scientific program that includes visits to the Fort Casamar, the Kasbah, and the Saint-Exupéry Museum, which celebrates its own 22nd anniversary this year.
Shaibata Mrabih Rabou, Director of the Museum, described Tarfaya as a cornerstone of the history of civil aviation, connecting Europe and Latin America in the 1920s, and welcomed the rally’s contribution to the cultural and tourist dynamism of Morocco’s southern provinces. The event’s scientific dimension adds further depth: a three-day astronomy training session, led by French amateur astronomers, is being hosted at the museum. Equipment for desert stargazing was transported in the planes’ holds as a gift to the Amis de Tarfaya association.
As a side note to the rally, the stele of the Bréguet 14 aircraft, installed on the Tarfaya corniche in 1987, was rehabilitated for the occasion, with a commemorative plaque unveiled in the presence of local authorities. A pedagogical project called “Le bivouac du sable et des étoiles” is running alongside the visit, offering Tarfaya’s children workshops in visual arts and astronomy. The Toulouse-Tarfaya rally is, in this sense, both a sporting event and a vehicle for cultural diplomacy — one that connects Morocco’s remote southern coast to a wider world through the shared memory of aviation’s heroic age.