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Join on Telegram Rabat – After entering a new era of diplomatic relations, business has emerged as key to France’s strategy to strengthen ties with Morocco.
France has adopted a distinct strategy in its efforts to mend diplomatic ties with Morocco. This week, converging reports indicated that Paris is interested in investing in the Western Sahara region in southern Morocco.
Unlike Spain, which opted to initially acknowledge Morocco’s sovereignty over Western Sahara and pledged investments at a later phase, France appears to be opting for a strategy of pursuing investment initiatives in Western Sahara before formally recognizing Morocco’s sovereignty.
With this bold move of seeking investment opportunities to “accompany” and “support” Morocco’s development efforts in the Western Sahara region, experts have maintained that France is edging closer to recognizing Morocco’s sovereignty over the region.
French Delegate Minister for Foreign Trade, Franck Riester, confirmed earlier this week his country’s interest in supporting Morocco’s development projects in the southern provinces during a visit to Rabat.
This move to invest in the Sahara signals France’s readiness to gradually embrace Morocco’s sovereignty over its southern provinces, Algerian Political Analyst Oualid Kebir commented on X in response to Riester’s comments.
He reposted on X a picture showing the French minister’s assistant going through a document that featured a full map of Morocco. The picture “indicates that the French government relies on this map in its official documents,” wrote the Algerian analyst.
Read also: French Ambassador Calls For Dialogue, Clarity on Western Sahara
The only step left to confirm France’s endorsement of Morocco’s Sahara stance is an official statement from the Elysee Palace, the analyst later wrote in a Facebook post.
“France only has left to issue a statement from the Élysée Palace declaring its official recognition of Morocco’s sovereignty over its desert,” Kebir said. “As I mentioned to you before… the statement of recognition is simmering on a low flame.”
Morocco’s relations with France have long been clouded by Paris’s ambiguous stance on the Western Sahara dispute. In recent months, however, France has increasingly taken proactive steps to amend the damaged bilateral ties with Rabat.
This past February, the then newly-appointed French Ambassador to Morocco, Christophe Lecourtier, struck a new note in France’s pro-Morocco shift when he argued that his country knows it cannot build strong diplomatic ties with Morocco without clarifying its stance on the Western Sahara dispute.
Riester made similar comments as he visited both Rabat and Casablanca this week. He reiterated France’s newfound position regarding ties with Morocco, hailing the two countries’ evolving cooperation and noting that these ties are destined for a “future as strong and fruitful as our common past.”
During his visit to Casablanca, the French minister highlighted the pivotal role of economic and commercial cooperation in bolstering the enduring friendship and partnership between Morocco and France.
He stressed the significance of broadening collaboration and enhancing coordination in sectors such as health, agriculture, agribusiness, and emerging technologies, concluding that Paris is committed to cementing its evolving cooperation with Rabat.
