Only time will tell what is rhetorical and what marks a real turning point, but one thing is already certain: Emmanuel Macron set his sights high on revitalizing Franco-Moroccan relations in his speech to Parliament in Rabat on Tuesday, October 29. This talk was a key highlight of the second day of his state visit to the Cherifian kingdom. Using the word "strategic" repeatedly throughout, he said the need to strengthen ties between France and Morocco is a "strategic duty," and beyond that, Europe and Africa, during this time of heightened migratory, climatic, food and security tensions.
So it was only natural that he reused the buzzword when he proposed to King Mohammed VI that the two countries should enter into a "new strategic framework," he said from the podium of Parliament. Such a format would make Morocco "the first country outside the European Union [with which] we would engage so intensely together," Macron said. A text formalizing the "new strategic framework" could even be signed during a state visit by the King to Paris in 2025 to mark the 70th anniversary of the joint declaration made at La Celle-Saint-Cloud (Yvelines). The document, signed on November 6, 1955, by Sultan Mohammed V and Antoine Pinay – then French Foreign Minister –paved the way for the kingdom's independence the following year.
Mohammed VI's announced state visit to France means that the Franco-Moroccan agenda is set to grow on an unprecedented scale as the plethora of contracts, letters of intent and other partnership projects signed in Rabat on Monday and Tuesday – worth a total of €10 billion – will lay the foundations for multi-faceted cooperation in the fields of energy transition, infrastructure and transport, education, digital technology and more.
In his address to Moroccan MPs, Macron emphasized the potential for synergies that could help the kingdom to "decarbonize" its economy through the production of renewable energies (solar, wind, green hydrogen), which could also provide Europe with "local supplies." For its part, Morocco could enable the "integration of value chains" to protect Europe and Africa from the "fragmentation of international trade." In Macron's eyes, the kingdom is a "platform," a "bridge" between Europe and Africa. In short, it is "a singular path."
While the French president was able to stand at the podium of Parliament on Tuesday and offer a "new strategic framework" to the king with whom he paraded the day before – via convertible – through the tricolored avenues of Rabat, he was also able to receive the honor of 21 cannon shots as he walked the red carpet as he stepped off the plane. This was because he had pronounced a magic formula three months earlier – the sesame that had opened the doors of Rabat to him: recognition of "Moroccan sovereignty" over Western Sahara.
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