Can I reserve a specific seat on a Moroccan train?

Yes — you can reserve a specific seat on Moroccan trains, but only in the classes that are sold as reserved, and understanding which those are is the whole answer. On the conventional ONCF inter-city network, first class is reserved: your ticket carries a coach and seat number, and that exact seat is held for you. Second class on those same trains is the opposite — it's unreserved, a 'sit wherever there's space' arrangement, so there's no specific seat to book and on a busy day you might not get one at all.

Al Boraq, the high-speed line, is the simplest case: it's fully reserved in both first and second class. Every ticket comes with an allocated seat, so whether you pay for first or second you'll always have a specific place that's yours. It works exactly like a reserved high-speed train anywhere in Europe — you book, you're given a seat, you find it and sit down. For travellers who like the certainty of a named seat, Al Boraq and conventional first class are the two ways to get it.

When you book — whether at a staffed counter, on the ONCF app, or via the website — a reserved ticket will show the carriage and seat number, and you can sometimes choose or at least be allocated together if you're a couple or family booking at once. Booking a little ahead helps here, particularly on popular departures and busy days, because the reserved seats on a given train are finite and the best ones (and adjacent pairs) go first. Same-day booking usually still gets you a seat, just less choice over where.

My practical bottom line is the one I repeat for almost every train question: if having a guaranteed, specific seat matters to you — because the journey's long, the day's busy, you've got luggage, or you're travelling with children — book first class on a conventional train or any class on Al Boraq, and the seat is locked in. Reserve second class for short, quiet hops where sitting wherever there's space is no hardship. The reservation system is straightforward; you just have to buy into a class that offers it.