In January 2014, El Ouardi was physically assaulted while exiting the parliament in Rabat. His assailants were members of the pharmacists union/lobby, and one of them was the brother-in-law of Fouad Ali El Himma, the influential advisor and close-friend of Mohammed VI, in addition to being the cousin of Fatima Ezzahra El Mansouri, the then-mayor of Marrakesh belonging to the Authenticity and Modernity Party.[6] The incident resulted in minor injuries for the minister.