It's time for a warm reunion between France and Morocco. Gone are the tensions, gone are the frosty moods – after almost three years of estrangement (summer 2021-spring 2024), Emmanuel Macron will begin a 48-hour state visit to Rabat on Monday, October 28, where King Mohammed VI will give him a warm welcome.
In the words of the Elysée Palace, the two Heads of State are set to celebrate "a new chapter" in their bilateral relationship, "a new ambition for the next 30 years" with a broad strategic focus. The aim is to place this renewed French-Moroccan relationship at the crossroads of Europe and Africa at a time of "rapid transformation of the international scene."
The visit will be closely scrutinized by neighboring Algeria, where a new quarrel is brewing with France following the latter's July endorsement of "Moroccan sovereignty" over the Western Sahara. No matter how hard the Ministry of Foreign Affairs tries to avoid a "zero-sum game" in North Algeria – warming relations with Rabat without cooling those with Algiers – the bitter antagonism between the two Maghreb capitals is making the balancing act increasingly perilous.
Accompanied by several ministers – Jean-Noël Barrot (foreign affairs), Sébastien Lecornu (defense) and Bruno Retailleau (interior), along with a sizeable delegation of businessmen – President Macron will endeavor to renew contact with Mohammed VI, which had turned sour in the summer of 2021. At the time, the numerous disputes had relentlessly fanned the flames of acrimony: the scandal of Moroccan espionage using Israeli Pegasus software; drastic visa restrictions seen as "humiliating" by the Moroccan elite; support from MEPs in the centrist Renew group (headed at the time by Macronist Stéphane Séjourné) for two Strasbourg Parliament resolutions criticizing Moroccan government practices.
And to top it all off, the French president's attempts to reconcile Algeria to its past exasperated Rabat. The result was a polar cold that froze a relationship once celebrated as "exceptional," with official contacts downgraded, proud press campaigns against Macron and an offer of French assistance snubbed during the earthquake in the High Atlas in September 2023. It was a crisis of unprecedented gravity.
But the atmosphere has lightened since the summer, which came with the change conceded by France on the Western Sahara, a condition set by the Cherifian kingdom for any bilateral warming. In a letter addressed to the king on July 30, on the occasion of Throne Day, Macron recognized "Moroccan sovereignty" over the former Spanish colony, specifying that the autonomy plan presented by Mohammed VI in 2007 was now "the only basis" for a future solution to be "negotiated."
While the gesture has no legal consequences – Western Sahara remains destined for "self-determination" under international law – Paris has never gone so far in endorsing the Moroccan thesis. Rabat, which sees this as the success of its showdown with Paris, applauded wildly. Addressing Parliament in Rabat on October 11, King Mohamed VI expressed his "most heartfelt thanks" and "profound gratitude to France and [to] President Emmanuel Macron for this frank support for the Moroccan character of the Sahara."
As expected, the price to be paid for this Moroccan appeasement was the opening of a new crisis with Algiers – a supporter of the Sahrawi pro-independence cause – which immediately reacted by "withdrawing" (a more serious measure than "recalling") its ambassador posted in Paris and suspending most official contacts. Thus, Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune's planned fall state visit to Paris was immediately canceled.
The French had anticipated the retort. They assume the risk all the more readily, since they believe that the hand extended in recent years by Macron – "the most pro-Algeria president of the Fifth Republic," as the Ministry of Foreign Affairs puts it – has never been fully grasped. In the process of "losing" Morocco without hoping to "win" Algeria, the Elysée Palace, after a long period of reflection throughout 2023, has decided to shift the focus of its Maghreb diplomacy toward the Cherifian kingdom.
In strictly economic terms, the "pro-Morocco" members of the French state apparatus who were pushing for this refocusing could point to a number of figures. In 2023, French exports to Morocco amounted to €6.7 billion, a third more than those to Algeria. As for the stock of French investments, in 2022 it stood at €8.1 billion in Morocco, compared with 2.4 billion in Algeria, i.e. more than three times as much. Macron's visit to Rabat should provide an opportunity to further bolster France's accounts in Morocco, with the announcement of some major deals in the offing.
Beyond the purely bilateral framework, the challenge is also – and above all – strategic. The Covid crisis and the war in Ukraine have prompted us to rethink the imperatives of "sovereignty": industrial, energy, food and health. From this perspective, Morocco is perceived in Paris and Brussels as a potential stage for the relocation of value chains to the periphery of Europe.
The Cherifian kingdom has also been able to "sell" itself as a platform for projection towards Africa – a "hub" as the Elysée Palace puts it – even if its initiatives (such as the Nigeria-Europe gas pipeline or the Atlantic outlet offered to the Sahel) are often more a matter of communication than operational reality. Finally, Paris is counting on Morocco, with its 13 million French speakers and 43,000 students enrolled in French schools, to revitalize the French-speaking audience at a time when its influence in Africa is eroding.
All this has been weighed up in Paris, calculated as closely as possible in the light of its long-term interests. The rebalancing now underway has quietly undermined Algeria's strategic credentials in the eyes of Paris, a downgrading that has been fueled by the disenchantments of recent years in the bilateral relationship, but also by doubts about the Algerian system's capacity to reform itself. For all that, Macron has not given up hope of normalizing relations with a country that, whatever its limitations, remains central to France, given the density of its human ties and the stakes involved in remembering its past. "We are staying the course" in the search for a peaceful relationship, insists the Elysée Palace. In particular, Paris believes it can accommodate the interests of Algeria, which has been weakened in its regional environment by the emerging hegemony of the Persian Gulf monarchies and the aggressive irruption of new players – Russia, the United Arab Emirates, Turkey and Iran – on its Sahelian borders.
The crisis caused by Macron's change of foot on the Western Sahara is no less serious and lasting. Tebboune, with whom the French president was supposed to have a relationship of trust, "felt betrayed," according to a French diplomat. His bitterness was heightened by the fact that Macron, who had made a point of informing him beforehand at a meeting on June 13 in Bari (Italy) on the sidelines of the G-7, had in fact evaded the radical nature of the forthcoming U-turn. For the time being, Paris hopes to soften the blow by working on a new memorial offering on the Algerian War and the colonial conquest. New "recognitions" could be proposed.
However, Tebboune does not seem to be in the mood to be satisfied, as illustrated by the freezing of the work of the joint commission of historians – co-chaired by Benjamin Stora – or his October 5 comments on the "genocide" committed by the French army during colonization. "Algeria refuses the 'drip-fed' policy," an Algerian historian and member of this commission told the daily Echorouk, in an allusion to gestures made by Macron since 2018 on specific cases – such as the 1957 assassinations of independence activists Maurice Audin and Ali Boumendjel. Failing to activate this lever of memory, Paris will have some difficulty in giving substance to its attempt to appease Algiers's spite caused by the rapprochement with Rabat.