Despite Media Hype, France Not Ready to Support Morocco’s Western Sahara Stance

Washington DC – While reports in both the French and Moroccan media have overhyped the visit of France’s top diplomat to Rabat, the reality remains that Sejourne’s visit and his enthusiastic (but ultimately ambiguous) comments on the Moroccan Autonomy Plan did not bring anything substantively new with regard to the French position on the Western Sahara dispute.

For at least the past half-decade, relations between Morocco and France have been marked by deep friction over the Sahara issue and episodes of hostility and suspicion on a wide range of other issues. And if anything, Sejourne’s visit should leave attentive observers of Paris-Rabat relations with the impression that France does not seem ready to abandon the old habits that have repeatedly outraged Morocco in recent years and ultimately led Rabat to consider Paris an unreliable ally.

As is well known, France’s reluctance to get out of its comfort zone and clearly support Moroccan diplomacy to end this decades-old territorial dispute has been at the heart of the lingering diplomatic crisis between Paris and Rabat.

But in recent months, both sides have given signs of their determination to overcome this diplomatic crisis. King Mohammed VI’s decision last October to appoint Samira Sitail as his new ambassador to France signaled Rabat’s willingness to reopen the channel of communication with Paris. The months following Sitail’s appointment saw a gradual resumption of contacts and exchanges of visits between the two countries.

In addition, Christophe Lecourtier, the French ambassador who had long been shunned by the Moroccan media, began to have a more sustained public presence and to engage more with the Moroccan media. In most of his numerous statements to the Moroccan press, the French ambassador insisted that France was finally ready to face up to its historical responsibility in the Sahara and to provide Morocco with clear support.

This has led many in Morocco to say a reconciliation between the two countries was imminent and that France may have finally decided to follow in the footsteps of its neighbor Spain and acknowledge its historical responsibility in the genesis and prolongation of the Sahara territorial dispute. Or, at the very least, commenters have suggested in recent weeks, France might now be ready to unequivocally recognize the Moroccan autonomy plan as the only basis on which all parties must work to reach a genuine and lasting political solution that guarantees Morocco’s territorial integrity.

However, the wording of the statement the top French diplomat made following his meeting in Rabat today with his Moroccan counterpart, Nasser Bourita, did not live up to the expectations of the Moroccan people. More to the point, Sejourne’s comments did not reflect any clear French intention to support Morocco diplomatically to help end the Sahara dispute.

What is even more striking about the French minister’s statements is that he reproduced the same language contained in all the resolutions adopted by the UN Security Council since 2007, stressing the need for a mutually acceptable political solution to the territorial dispute.

Insisting, like Sejourne did in his comments in Rabat, that the parties to the Sahara dispute should be guided by “pragmatism in this file, while supporting the efforts of the UN envoy, Staffan de Mistura, to restart negotiations,” does not indicate any change in French ambiguity on this question.

Rather, it appears that the French Foreign Minister sought to emphatically echo the language of recent UN Security Council resolutions (all of which effectively side with Morocco in supporting the primacy of a “compromise-based political solution”) in order to misleadingly create the impression that Paris is ready to accept Morocco’s autonomy plan.

Between the adoption of Resolution 2440 in 2018 and the adoption of Resolution 2654 last October, the Security Council has continued to stress the centrality of pragmatism and realism in reaching a politically feasible and sustainable resolution to the territorial conflict. The resolutions adopted since 2018 have also emphasized the need for all parties to the conflict, including Algeria, to commit to the UN-moderated roundtable discussions aimed at forging a compromise-based path to a lasting solution.

When the French Foreign Minister said in Rabat that the Western Sahara is an existential issue for Morocco and that Paris hoped to renew its “clear and firm” support to Rabat, he was far from expressing any French intention to provide a clear and unwavering support to the Moroccan stance on the Sahara.

In a sense, Sejourne was just preaching to the choir, because Moroccans from all walks of life are aware of the existential importance of the territorial integrity of Morocco and the role that Sahara plays in this regard. Should we have waited all the time for a French minister to remind us of this self-evident fact?

To be sure, France was once one of Morocco’s main supporters in the UN Security Council for the most part of the past three decades, especially during the period between 2007 and 2019.

It would be wrong to overlook the fact that France helped Morocco maintain the status quo within the Security Council at a time when Morocco was hardly able to make any meaningful diplomatic breakthroughs that could have boosted its position and put Algeria on the defensive.

However, since the United States of America recognized Morocco’s sovereignty over the Sahara and the preeminence of the Moroccan autonomy plan in December 2020, France has repeatedly failed to express clear support for Morocco’s territorial integrity.

One would have hoped that Spain’s decision in April 2022 to support Morocco’s Autonomy Plan could have convinced France to follow suit and join the increasingly irreversible pro-Moroccan momentum on the Sahara question. But the lesson to be learned from the wording of Sejourne’s Rabat comments is that France is not yet ready to unequivocally support Morocco’s sovereignty over the Sahara.

As I have pointed out in many of my previous articles, it is common knowledge that France is the country that created this conflict and played a pivotal role in cutting off large parts of Moroccan territory. France’s actions at the beginning of the 20th century were contrary to international law and the agreements it signed, including the Acts of the 1906 Algeciras Conference, which stipulated the necessity for the signatories to respect Morocco’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.

If France truly believes that the Sahara has an existential importance for Morocco, what is preventing it from clearly recognizing Morocco’s sovereignty over this territory, or, at the very least, taking the same position as Spain? If France really wants to “open a new page with Morocco,” it must first acknowledge its historical responsibility in this territorial dispute.

If France really wants to help Morocco move forward on this issue, it knows that the best way to achieve this is to unequivocally embrace the Moroccan Autonomy Plan as the best hope for lasting peace and stability in the region. Such a move from France would deal a quasi-deadly blow to Algeria, prompting the Algerian regime to reconsider its obstinacy to use the Sahara as a card to weaken Morocco.

But, some may ask, what if the French Foreign Minister’s comments in Rabat constitute only the first chapter in France’s attempt to thaw its relations with Morocco? What if Sejourne’ visit was only aimed to lay the groundwork for a future visit by President Macron, who will then seize the occasion to announce France’s adoption of a clearer position of support towards Morocco?

It is an open secret that the French President has repeatedly expressed his desire to visit Morocco, but the Moroccan government has consistently made it clear there would be no such visit with Paris still reluctant to publicly and firmly support Morocco’s sovereignty over the Sahara. Anyone familiar with the inner workings of Moroccan diplomacy knows full well that King Mohammed VI won’t greenlight Macron’s visit unless he expresses his commitment to announce France’s change of position in line with Morocco’s expectations.

Until France acknowledges its historical responsibility in the creation of the Sahara dispute and supports the preeminence of the Moroccan autonomy plan, Moroccans should not be carried away by anything coming from the French government. Rather, they should keep demanding that France get out of its gray zone and adopt a position of clear support for Morocco.

Samir Bennis is the co-founder and publisher of Morocco World News. You can follow him on Twitter @SamirBennis.