2023-12-14 13:25:18
Nicolas Sarkozy in Rabat, December 13, 2023. – / AFP
In the La Tour Hassan hotel, in Rabat, agitation suddenly took over the lobby on Wednesday December 13 in the middle of the afternoon. ” He’s there ! », warns a voice. Nicolas Sarkozy walks through the doors of the five-star establishment as a downpour falls on the Moroccan capital. The photographers rush. Having just arrived from the airport of the capital of Morocco, the former president walks through the doors of the building. “He brought the water”, murmurs a lady who came specially to see the former president (2007-2012). The beneficial rain: a few days ago, rogatory prayers were offered in all the mosques in the country, as is traditional in the country in the event of persistent drought.
Nicolas Sarkozy’s last public appearance in the kingdom dates back to 2019, when he spoke at the Moroccan employers’ summer school in Casablanca. This time, the former head of state came at the invitation of the Development and Solidarity Council (CDS), a think tank founded by entrepreneur Mohamed Benamour, owner of the Hassan Tower, a century-old palace with a Moorish character, a mecca for business meetings in the capital.
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In one of the hotel’s reception rooms, in front of some 200 people, including his former minister and « ami » Eric Besson, who has chaired the Moroccan subsidiary of the Swiss group Sicpa since 2019, Nicolas Sarkozy came to present his latest book, The Time of Fighting (ed. Fayard). Essentially, the audience is a motley assembly of Moroccan VIPs: André Azoulay, advisor to the king – and father of Audrey Azoulay, the director general of UNESCO and former minister of culture of François Hollande –, the president of Constitutional Council, the minister of higher education, the general treasurer of the kingdom, a former minister of foreign affairs, the mayor of Rabat, the head of the National Press Agency, a party leader or even the director of a subsidiary of the royal holding company Al Mada.
French Ambassador Christophe Lecourtier, who worked with him as an advisor in 2004 when he served as economy minister, is also there. “Here’s a good ambassador, that makes a difference”, slips Nicolas Sarkozy, smirking. A dig aimed at Hélène Le Gal, the former Africa advisor to François Hollande, whom Emmanuel Macron had appointed ambassador to Morocco in 2019 – she joined the European External Action Service in Brussels in 2022.
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