A “historic” displacement. This is how the French Minister of Culture Rachida Dati qualified her visit this Monday, February 17 in the non -autonomous and disputed territory of Western Sahara. “It is the first time that a French minister has come to the southern provinces,” Rachida Dati told AFP shortly after his arrival in Laayoune to launch a French cultural center. The Minister, on an official visit to Morocco this Monday and Tuesday, used the terminology used by Rabat to designate this territory in the status not defined in the UN.
According to Rachida Dati, this trip “demonstrates that the present and the future of this region are part of Moroccan sovereignty”. The Western Sahara, a vast desert area, is an ex-Spanish-colony, controlled at around 80 % by Morocco but claimed for 50 years by the separatists of the Polisario Front, supported by Algeria.
At the end of July 2024, Emmanuel Macron provided support for a plan of autonomy of the territory “under Moroccan sovereignty” proposed by Rabat, breaking with the traditional French position favorable to the UN process, and causing a serious crisis with Algiers. During a visit at the end of October 2024 in Morocco, the French president promised France’s “diplomatic” commitment to push the Moroccan solution to Western Sahara to the UN and within the European Union.
A self-determination referendum was provided by the UN when signing a cease-fire in 1991 but he never materialized. Last October, a resolution of the Security Council supported by 12 of the 15 members, called for a “realistic and mutually acceptable” solution in Western Sahara.
The personal “attachment” in Morocco of Rachida Dati
For Rachida Dati, the antenna of the Alliance Française soon installed in Laayoune will be “an opening to the world, on France, with cultural activities, especially in learning the language, with exchanges of artists, with educational paths “. “We want this French alliance to become a flagship place in our France and Morocco cooperation,” said the minister, evoking a “symbolic aspect” and her “attachment” in Morocco from which her father is from.
In the company of his Moroccan counterpart Mohamed Mehdi Bensaïd, Minister of Youth, Culture and Communication, Rachida Dati also went to Dakhla, 500 kilometers south of Laayoune, in order to kick off An annex to the Higher Institute of ISMAC Cinema Trades. According to a press release from the Moroccan Ministry of Culture, the visit of the two officials “takes on a political dimension after the recognition by France of full sovereignty of Morocco in its southern provinces”.
During her trip to Morocco, Rachida Dati also traveled with Mohamed Mehdi Bensaïd several emblematic historical and cultural sites of the city of Tarfaya, said The Moroccan media LE7TV. Among them, the Kasbah of Tarfaya, built in 1938, and Fort Casa Mar, vestige of the 19th century. The Minister of Culture also visited the Antoine Museum in Saint-Exupéry, in tribute to the French writer and aviator who stayed in Tarfaya in 1927 as part of the Aéropostale missions.