Rabat- A video of French President Emmanuel Macron promising to provide a place to stay for a Moroccan student has gone viral on social media.
Amid crowds, a Moroccan student complained about her inability to find accomodation to Macron. He was responsive to her request, asking if she had a student visa.
The young girl, accompanied by a friend who was facing the same problem, said that it had only been a week since she arrived in France to pursue her higher education in electrical energy and automation at Saint Jerome University in Marseille.
“Please, sir, we are pained.… We came here to realize our dream,” she pleaded. Macron promised the student to speak with concerned authorities on her behalf.
It was not the first time that a Moroccan woman sought Macron’s help in public. However, Macron’s previous interaction did not go as favorably for the Moroccan.
An asylum-seeker approached the president in November 2017 during a charity event in Paris. Macron’s strict approach to her problem sparked mixed reactions.
When the woman told Macron that her sick parents were living in France, he said: “You can come visit them regularly, if you want.… If you are not in danger, you should go back to your country.”
The French president has always been strict when it comes to migration affairs.
Justifying his strict immigration policy, Macron quoted the famous words of former French Prime Minister Michel Rocard in 1989: “We take our share, but we can not welcome all the misery of the world.”
He added: “I cannot give French papers to everyone, otherwise how do I deal with all the people who are already here and who cannot find work?”
In the midst of concerns over the numbers of irregular migrants arriving in France, Macron will visit Morocco in November to discuss migration, among a range of critical issues in Morocco-France bilateral ties.
In addition to the strong commercial and cultural—mainly linguistic and educational—ties between France and Morocco, the two countries have upgraded their security cooperation in recent months.
