Almost 4 months have passed since the end of the mandate of Mohamed Benchaaboun, the Moroccan ambassador to Paris, without Rabat choosing any name to replace him until the moment, as “usual Moroccan blackmail regarding the Sahara.”
The former French ambassador to the United Nations, Gerard Araud, said that “Morocco is blackmailing France in the issue of the Moroccan Sahara, after Paris was one of its biggest supporters in the file.”
In response to recent statements made by French-Moroccan writer Tahar Benjelloun in which he blamed French President Emmanuel Macron for the deterioration of relations between Rabat and Paris, Araud commented, “It is a usual Moroccan extortion of the Moroccan Sahara, similar to the American position.”
The US administration of former President Donald Trump issued a presidential decree supporting Morocco’s territorial integrity in December 2020.
“I have spent my nights defending Morocco in the Security Council on behalf of France, including against the United States,” Araud said.
The French diplomat stressed that France “was for decades alone in defending Moroccan interests in the Security Council,” referring to its previous support for the autonomy proposal, which is not an ordinary personality’s words. He was part of the UN operation for the Sahara issue, as he was the ambassador of France in Israel between 2003 and 2006, and in Washington between 2014 and 2016.
According to the same source, it is the succession of setbacks for Macron’s policy in North Africa, which is losing its strength in an area that France considered its “back garden”, as the visit of French President Abdelmadjid Tebboune to Paris was postponed, while Tunisian President Kais Saied considered that the proposals for solutions to his country’s crisis submitted by France And Italy as “dictates” that undermine social peace, in addition to the decline in Moroccan-French economic and security cooperation.
And it was officially confirmed that there was a diplomatic vacuum in the Moroccan Embassy in Paris, in the midst of the unprecedented crisis between the two countries, after the Official Gazette published a communiqué of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, African Cooperation and Moroccans Abroad, issued on January 19, 2023, according to which the duties of Mohamed Benchaaboun as Moroccan ambassador to Morocco were terminated. France under the instructions of King Mohammed VI.
The historian and professor at the Sorbonne University, Pierre Vermieran, confirms that “summoning the ambassador is neither normal nor common.” This expert on Morocco and the Arab Maghreb added that the absence of ambassadors in France “is a very firm signal to France regarding its diplomacy.”
In this context, Pierre Vermeiran notes that “the main thing for Rabat is for France to recognize Moroccan sovereignty” over the Moroccan Sahara, as has the United States and Spain.
For his part, Zakaria Abu al-Dahab, a professor of international relations at Mohammed V University in Rabat, believes that this coldness paves the way for new bilateral relations, “with what it carries of restructuring and repositioning.”
And he believed that the “reassuring” speech by the French Foreign Ministry allowed “a little order to be restored in this geopolitical chaos,” but that this was still not enough to put the Franco-Moroccan partnership “back on track.”
At the same time, relations between Paris and Rabat are still closely linked to Paris’s policy towards Algeria.
French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna personally carried a message of calm to Rabat. The idea of a state visit by French President Emmanuel Macron to Morocco “in the first quarter” of 2023 was raised.
During a hearing before the Foreign Affairs Committee of the National Assembly, French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna defended her country’s policy in the Maghreb countries.
During the session, several deputies asked the Minister of Foreign Affairs about information recently published by “Jeanne Afrique” quoting an official source in the Moroccan government, whom the magazine did not name, in which he said that “relations are neither friendly nor good, neither between the two governments nor between the Royal Palace and the Elysee.”
Colonna responded by saying that this statement had an anonymous source. She added, “If we read statements that we do not like in the press, they are from anonymous sources and therefore do not warrant a specific comment.” The Secretary of State also stressed her commitment to “practice calm”, as evidenced by the fact that she herself traveled to Morocco in December on a visit that enabled the resumption of “normal consular relations”.
During her visit, Colonna announced the end of the visa restrictions imposed by France, which had damaged relations between her and Morocco. Paris soon made a similar decision for Algeria. “I hope, for my part, I will continue to practice the same moderation,” Colonna added.
The minister did not mention the visit that was scheduled to be made by French President Emmanuel Macron to Morocco in the first quarter of this year, which, apparently, is no longer valid.
But Colonna recalled the talks she held last December in Rabat, during which the French and Moroccan governments expressed their desire to rebuild their relationship in depth and discussed Macron’s possible visit.
However, Rabat has not yet confirmed that the core of the dispute with Paris lies in the latter’s position on the issue of the Moroccan Sahara, which was fabricated by Algeria. Morocco called on the French partner to get out of the “gray zone” regarding this conflict, especially after the American recognition of Moroccan sovereignty over its desert.
