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In an unsurprising turn of events, Algeria has decided to bar French companies from participating in a tender for wheat imports, responding to Paris’s increasingly unwavering support for Morocco’s sovereignty over the Western Sahara region.
Quoting trading sources, Reuters reported on Wednesday that Algeria’s government has instructed all the firms bidding for the wheat import tender against eventually offering French-origin wheat.
“Algeria is one of the world’s biggest wheat buyers and for many years France was by far its largest supplier,” the news outlet reported.
The Algerian decision has been interpreted as an apparent response to France’s new Western Sahara position.
In July, French President Emmanuel Macron addressed to King Mohammed VI an unprecedented letter in which he expressed France’s unequivocal support for Morocco’s sovereignty over Western Sahara.
“Paris’ position is that the present and future of Western Sahara fall within the framework of Moroccan sovereignty,” Macron said.
Read also: Algeria Threatens to Sanction France over Its New Position on Western Sahara
In the immediate aftermath of this historic shift in support of Morocco’s territorial integrity, Algeria recalled its ambassador from Paris, claiming that the French decision “was made with significant recklessness and disregard for the consequences.”
Algiers further claimed that Paris’s endorsement of Morocco’s Sahara stance was a violation of international law.
This condemnatory statement was followed with threats similar to what Agiers issued after Spain announced its endorsement of Morocco’s Autonomy Plan in March 2022.
After recalling Algeria’s ambassador from Paris, Algerian Foreign Minister Ahmed Attaf said that the decision was “ a reduction in diplomatic representation” and constituted “a significant step to express our condemnation and disapproval.”
Algeria similarly recalled its ambassador to Madrid while terminating a 20-year-old Friendship Treaty with the European country in protest of the Spanish government’s declaration of support for Morocco’s Western Sahara position.
These muscular reactions to France’s and Spain’s of Morocco’s embrace of territorial integrity are in line with Algeria’s well-documented sponsoring of the separatist Polisario Front’s decades-long quest to undermine Moroccan sovereignty on the Western Sahara region.
In addition to hosting the separatist group’s headquarters in Tindouf on Algerian soil, Algeria finances the Polisario and provides it with the necessary logistical and diplomatic support to win its “decolonization” war against Morocco.
