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Rabat – French senator Christian Cambon criticized France’s visa restrictions on Moroccan citizens, emphasizing that this could “jeopardize” diplomatic ties between Rabat and Paris.
Quoted by BFMTV, the French senator described France’s visa policy as “absurd” and with “no sense.”
“Morocco, a friendly country with which we have very strong ties, both military, economically, intellectually, and culturally, takes this matter very seriously,” he said.
In September 2021, France announced its decision to arbitrarily cut the number of visas granted to Moroccans and Algerians in half.
The decision angered Moroccan citizens and their government, who argued that France’s act was “unjustified.”
Many Moroccans took to social networks to denounce France’s visa restrictions. Some of them shared their testimonies live online. One of the testimonies that made headlines was from a Moroccan woman who received support from several French public figures. The Moroccan woman said that a French consulate in Morocco rejected a family visit for her mother and grandmother to attend her brother’s wedding in Paris.
Expressing support for the woman’s case, France’s former minister of territorial development Cecile Duflot urged the French embassy in Morocco to intervene and allow the family to reunite and attend their relative’s wedding.
French Senator Yan Chantel also criticized the country’s visa restriction approach.
Like Chantel and Duflot, Cambon finds France’s visa policy “very humiliating for Moroccans.”
“The visa issue will become a real obstacle to any discussion and on any subject with the country”, the senator argued.
Relations between France and Morocco have experienced some tense moments in the past few years.
Recently, the Moroccan-French Peace and Sustainable Development Foundation called on France to clarify its position on the Sahara dispute.
“The silence is perceived by Moroccans as an unfriendly act,” the foundation said.
The statement comes a month after King Mohammed VI called on all of Morocco’s partners, whose positions on the Sahara dispute are “ambiguous” to make their stances clear.
“I therefore expect certain states among Morocco’s traditional partners as well as new ones, whose stances concerning the Moroccanness of the Sahara are ambiguous, to clarify their positions and reconsider them in a manner that leaves no room for doubt,” the monarch said in his speech on the anniversary of the “Revolution of King and People” on August 20.
