Rabat – France is reportedly working to “find appeasement gestures” in an attempt to put an end to the lingering diplomatic crisis with Morocco, AFP reported on Tuesday.
As part of the rapprochement move, French Foreign Minister Catherin Colonna is set to travel Morocco in mid-December to prepare for Emmanuel Macron’s official trip to the kingdom in January, AFP quoted diplomatic sources as confirming.
“Everything is still in motion there can always be a postponement of the amicable trip,” the sources stressed.
The AFP report comes after a similar article by Africa Intelligence quoted sources that also spoke about Colonna’s potential visit to Rabat in December.
In particular, Africa Intelligence reported about a phone call between King Mohammed VI and Macron, which it described as an “attempt to smooth the decidedly strained relations between Paris and Rabat.”
The potential visits from France’s FM and president would come amid diplomatic tensions due to the French government’s ongoing visa restrictions targeting Moroccan travelers.
In September 2021, France announced its decision to cut the number of visas issued to Moroccans by 50%, arguing that the move was due to Morocco’s “unwillingness” to cooperate in the extradition of irregular Moroccan migrants in France.
Morocco rejected the French government’s claims, stressing that it has always dealt with “the issue of migration and the movement of individuals with great responsibility and balance.”
Moroccan Foreign Affairs Minister Nasser Bourita described France’s measure as “unjustified,” emphasizing that Morocco aims to facilitate the movement of students and businessmen, while “simultaneously countering irregular migration.”
AFP also acknowledged that France’s ambiguous position on the Western Sahara dispute could be one of the reasons behind the political crisis between the two countries
“Paris is considered too wait-and-see on the question of Western Sahara – Morocco’s ‘national cause’ – and its new honeymoon with its Algerian regional rival, has made people cringe” in Morocco, AFP wrote.
AFP’s report comes as many Moroccan observers and analysts continue to take exception to France’s silence and ambivalence on the Western Sahara question, especially since the US embraced the Moroccan Autonomy Plan.
With Morocco having made notable diplomatic strides on the Western Sahara question, the prevailing view in Rabat appears to be that Paris’s ambivalence makes it an unreliable partner for Rabat.
In August, King Mohammed VI sent a clear message to all of Morocco’s partners, emphasizing that the kingdom no longer accepts ambiguous stances from its international partners with regard to the Western Sahara dispute.
“I therefore expect certain states among Morocco’s traditional partners as well as new ones, whose stances concerning the Morocccanness of the Sahara are ambiguous, to clarify their positions and reconsider them in a manner that leaves no room for doubt,” the King said, stressing that the Sahara issue is the lens “through which Morocco looks at the world.”
He underlined that Morocco’s Sahara cause is “the clear, simple benchmark whereby my country measures the sincerity of friendships and the efficiency of partnerships.”
