After three years of acute crisis, Emmanuel Macron will make a state visit to Morocco from October 28 to 30, a press release from the Moroccan royal cabinet announced on Monday, October 21.
This visit, which follows an invitation at the end of September from the King of Morocco, Mohamed VI, “reflects the depth of bilateral relations, based on a rooted and solid partnership” with a “common desire” to “strengthen the multidimensional ties uniting the two country,” assured the royal cabinet.
France opened the way for bilateral warming by making a gesture on Western Sahara, a former Spanish colony controlled mainly by Morocco but claimed by the Sahrawi separatists of the Polisario Front.
On July 30, Paris reinforced its support for the Moroccan plan – which proposes a plan for autonomy under its sovereignty – now considering it as “the only basis” for resolving a conflict almost 50 years old. The gesture was expected by Morocco, which had already taken a major step by obtaining recognition by the American administration of Donald Trump at the end of 2020 of its sovereignty over this territory, in return for a rapprochement with Israel. Under pressure from Rabat, France, a former colonial power with a large Moroccan diaspora, finally changed its position after Berlin and Madrid.
The anger of Algiers
Without expressly recognizing the “Moroccan nature” of the Sahara, Emmanuel Macron then agreed that “the present and the future (of this territory) are part of the framework of Moroccan sovereignty”. France’s change in posture unsurprisingly aroused the ire of Algiers, which supports the Sahrawi separatists and immediately recalled its ambassador from Paris, once again plunging the bilateral relationship into turmoil.
The separatists are demanding a self-determination referendum planned during a ceasefire in 1991 but never organized. This territory, rich in fish-bearing waters and phosphates, has significant economic potential.
By finally carrying out this visit, regularly mentioned but constantly postponed since 2022, Emmanuel Macron also intends to turn the page on a series of other tensions. The policy of rapprochement that the French president had initiated with Algeria, while Algiers broke off its diplomatic relations with Rabat in 2021, had already irritated Morocco to the highest degree. In 2021, the French decision to halve the visas granted to Moroccans was also particularly criticized. As with other Maghreb countries, its objective was to encourage Rabat to cooperate more in matters of illegal immigration. But a little over a year later, Paris reversed course and its visa policy returned to normal. On the French side, we hardly appreciated the revelations according to which the phones of Emmanuel Macron and ministers had been targeted in 2019 by Morocco, user of the Israeli spy software Pegasus, which Rabat denied.
The Franco-Moroccan warming opens up new economic and commercial prospects for French companies, which have kept a low profile in recent years in the face of the accumulation of disputes.