The historical relationships between France y Morocco They are going through a turbulent time. The North African country has not had an ambassador in the French capital for almost two months, while criticism of the French government multiplies in Rabat for its position on the Occidental Sahara and by the resolution in January of the European Parliament very critical of the Moroccan kingdom. The French authorities are reluctant to acknowledge this hidden diplomatic crisis, despite the obvious disagreements between Paris and Rabat.
“The relationships they are not friendly or goodboth between the two governments and between the Royal Palace and the Élysée,” a source from the Moroccan government assured in early March in statements to the French magazine Jeune Afrique. With these words, they responded to the will of the president Emmanuel Macron to downplay this apparent diplomatic chill, after being asked about it during his press conference to detail his strategy on Africa, at the end of February.
The French ambassador to Morocco, Christophe Lecourtier, denied that there was a diplomatic crisis, but acknowledged “misunderstandings and even small turbulences”in an interview for the Saudi newspaper rab News. The French Foreign Minister, Catherine Colonna, expressed before a commission of the National Assembly her will to “practice appeasement”.
In fact, Macron had planned a visit to morocco at the end of last year, but, first, it was postponed to the first quarter of this year and, later, it was said that it would not be held until at least the end of April. At the moment, there is no official confirmation about this displacement, its exact date or whether it will include a meeting with the rey Mohamed VI, although it is hard to imagine that the French presidency would accept an official visit without a meeting with its counterpart. The recent Spanish-Moroccan summit – the first high-level one in the last eight years – had already generated some controversy due to the absence of the monarch.
‘Qatargate’ and visas
These turbulences are due as much to some conjunctural issues as to other more structural ones. As was to be expected, the Moroccan authorities are very upset after the approval on January 19 of a resolution in the European Parliament harshly criticizing their country for the jailing of journalists and expressing concern about the corruption accusations against Rabat in the frame of the plotQatargate‘which includes an alleged Moroccan branch.
From that same day, the Moroccan ambassador in Paris ceased his duties and they still haven’t named one again. This is not a coincidence, since from the other side of the Mediterranean they point to the Elysée for that resolution, due to the weight that the MEP Stéphane Séjourné, who chairs Macron’s party, has in the group of liberals —the third largest force in the European Parliament. . “Is it an act of the French government? No,” said the French president about the text approved in Strasbourg.
The ties between the French and Moroccan governments had already become cloudy after the French administration’s decision in September 2021 to cut visas in half granted to the Moroccan population to travel to French territory. A measure taken in response to the reluctance of Rabat to accept the expulsions to its territory of Moroccan migrants in an irregular situation. Although in the end the French Executive renounced this controversial limitation of visas, that eroded relations.
Occidental Sahara
“At the beginning of the 2000s, both countries maintained a very close relationship. But this changed and each of them currently has greater autonomy,” the historian Pierre Vermeren, author, explained to this journalist from EL PERIÓDICO in the summer of 2021. from the book Morocco in 100 questions: a kingdom of paradoxes. The times when France considered Morocco the little girl in her eyes in the Maghreb and the idyll between Mohamed VI and Jacques Chirac, her “true older brother”, have passed into history. The Moroccan elites viewed President François Hollande and now Macron with some mistrust, for having made the reconciliation with Algeria.
Rabat puts pressure on Paris to follow in the footsteps of the United States and Spain and recognize the Occidental Sahara as a Moroccan territory. France is opposed, however, to this. It does so not only to respect United Nations resolutions, but also to avoid upsetting the Algerian authorities. While French diplomacy has focused in recent years on a delicate balance based on concentrating its efforts on Algiers, hoping that this will not affect relations with Rabat, Morocco has emerged as a regional power, which does not hesitate to behave defiantly with European powers, a priori allies. This is what happened with espionage by the Moroccan secret services through Pegasus Macron’s mobile phone and perhaps also Sánchez’s.
This buried diplomatic crisis between Paris and Rabat comes at a time of declining French influence in Africa. More and more African leaders are defiant with the authorities of their former colony. And a country with so many ambitions like Morocco could not be an exception.