Thanks for your input and views - valuable and interesting. Communicating by virtual means is, of course, incomplete and often misleading. Maybe it seems like I am constantly worrying about J because that is what I communicate here; in real life, though, I think things are a bit more "cool"
Really my aim in coming here to France (where I already had a property) was for J to learn French - languages in general are such an advantage, of course, and then for a Moroccan to speak and write French is an incalculable advantage (sadly, perhaps, in these post-colonial days) if J one day wants to make his life there. He has also been in a tiny school environment, which has also been really valuable for him (and deliberately chosen by me) - as the teacher says, in an ordinary-sized class he would be constantly designated a trouble-maker and there would be no time to give him the one to one attention on which he thrives. So from that point of view, really all to the good.
But of course from another point of view, it is a bit disastrous having such a small pool of friends to choose from. The other boy, in fairness, really isn't a difficult child - he seems a polite, amenable youngster, if rather stolid and serious, perhaps more of an introvert to J's extrovert. But I don't think they are natural friends, probably. There is a boy who is a year younger (a quarter Moroccan as his father is half Moroccan...) and they really are natural friends - the relationship is much less conflictual, so they tell me. I am worried that some genie is going to come out of the bottle at school, and I think that's understandable, really. Seeing his intense outbursts with me, his physical violence (not to hurt but still violence) with me, his constant outbursts when he doesn't get what he wants, I have been surprised at how well he has held it together at school. So unfortunately when this kind of stuff happens I'm viewing it from a rather different perspective than "oh it's just boy stuff"... J does have
something like ADHD - it could be Sensory Integration Disorder (SID), it could be fetal alchohol effects, it could be, as the last child pyschiatrist we saw said, that he is hyperactive in the old diagnosis but since this has now been lumped in with attention deficiency as well, he has to be called ADHD even though he isn't...
Thank you for your comments, anyway, This does help me clarify that it would be best for us to settle somewhere else, probably in Casablanca with J going to a French school there. He will stand out less like a sore thumb there, apart from anything else. Perhaps I too will be happier out of this environment. People here are like people anywhere - some have large hearts and understanding minds; some are narrow minded and critical. When I take J to school, there are a group of parents who barely nod to me. Some do not even acknowledge me at all, even though I smile at them or say hello... It's rather rude and, if I wanted to take it to heart, rather upsetting... But I haven't really taken it personally because they don't know me.
The conflict is because I KNOW that J would do best in a small school environment - it's beyond question. He is not going to find that in a French school in Morocco, which will have classes of around 25. Not an easy decision. But I think perhaps this incident has shown that our time in the village should be limited