Now re-elected, will Emmanuel Macron use his second five-year term to rectify the situation with Morocco, following a most banal first five-year term?
Two sentences in all and for all, one for “expresses[r] his congratulations” and “formula[ er] wishes of success”, and the second for “congratulates[r] the depth of the multidimensional ties that unite the Moroccan and French peoples”: the message sent on April 25, 2022 by King Mohammed VI to French President Emmanuel Macron on the occasion of his re-election on the same day, at least as reported by the he Maghreb Arab press agency (MAP), was, to say the least, laconic.
An impression that is all the more striking when compared to that of early May 2017, to the first election of Mr. Macron at the head of France: the dispatch that the MAP had then devoted to it had by itself included nine paragraphs , one of which had highlighted the “high human and intellectual qualities” of Mr. Macron, while the last paragraph expressed King Mohammed VI’s desire to “consolidate [la] exemplary cooperation [entre le Maroc et la France] so that [lui et son homologue français] relev[assent] the many challenges that challenge [l’]Euro-Mediterranean area and the Sahelo-Saharan region”. Two days following the message, King Mohammed VI will even take the phone to discuss with Mr. Macron, following which a press release from the Royal Cabinet will be published to reveal that “the interview was an opportunity to highlight the singular nature of the relations that bind [le Maroc et la France] in all areas, as well as the shared desire to consolidate and enrich this exceptional partnership”.
On this basis, it cannot therefore be said that the content of King Mohammed VI’s last message is not to be interpreted as the manifestation of a certain dissatisfaction on the part of Morocco towards Mr. Macron. In any case, the reasons would not be lacking, as we had noted in our previous issues. Throughout his first five-year term, there was certainly no open diplomatic crisis like the one that followed the attempt to summon, in February 2014, the Director General of National Territorial Surveillance (DGST) , Abdellatif Hammouchi, by the French courts for a torture case which turned out to be fabricated by former kickboxer Zakaria Moumni.
But this is more to be attributed to Morocco’s restraint than to facts, which, in themselves, have more than once given the Kingdom the opportunity to get on its high horse without it choosing finally to do so. By way of example, we can cite the untimely outing once morest the so-called “Islamist separatism” of October 2, 2020 by Mr. Macron himself, who then mentioned by name the Moroccan imams and chanters – as well as Turks and Algerians – to denounce the “foreign influences” on Islam in France. Did he really need to name their nationality?
In any case, the impression that came out of it was that both he and the government officials he had appointed were using Morocco in particular as a punching bag to gain points once morest the far right, which might not that confirm the decision taken a little less than a year later, on September 28, 2021, to reduce the number of visas granted to Moroccans in the same way as Algerians and Tunisians on the pretext that their “countries do not agree to resume [leurs] nationals” -says the Secretary of State to the Prime Minister, government spokesperson, Gabriel Attal, on Europe Matin radio-, at a time when the polemicist Éric Zemmour and his anti-immigration program were announced in the second round of presidential.
Punching-ball
“Decision [de la France] is sovereign. Morocco is going to study it, but the reasons which justify it require precision, a dialogue, because they do not reflect reality,” was content to react the same day, during a press conference given in Rabat alongside of his Mauritanian counterpart Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Nasser Bourita, but we know thanks to the book “The Night falls twice” published on February 23, 2022 by journalists Corinne Lhaïk and Eric Mandonnet that behind the scenes Mr. Macron had to do it three times to get King Mohammed VI on the phone and explain his government’s decision to him.
To this, we can also add the exit of December 2, 2019 of the French Minister of the Economy, Bruno Le Maire, who, during the high mass of the French automobile that is the Automobile Platform, had declared not to really taste the “development model” which leads manufacturers like PSA and Renault to relocate some of their factories to Slovakia, Turkey, and… Morocco; what he will discreetly return to during a visit less than two months later to Rabat, highlighting the fact that “France wants a win-win partnership” with the Kingdom.
These various facts can however be considered, in the last instance, as trifles when they are put next to what must undoubtedly constitute the main bone of contention with Morocco: the question of the Moroccan Sahara. On this point, “France’s position (…) is constant, in favor of a just, lasting and mutually acceptable political solution, in accordance with the resolutions of the United Nations Security Council”, as recalled by the March 21, 2022 the spokesperson for the French Ministry of Europe and Foreign Affairs, Anne-Claire Legendre, during a press briefing where she also specified that “from this perspective, the Moroccan autonomy plan is a basis for serious and credible discussions”.
Except that in fact, on April 13, 2021, we saw the Secretary of State for European Affairs, Claude Beaune, “regrets[r]” the decision of La République en Marche (LREM), Mr. Macron’s party, to set up a branch in Dakhla, in the Moroccan Sahara, and qualify it as an “initiative taken locally”. There too, Morocco had said nothing, but it goes without saying that the statement must have upset in more ways than one at a time when the Kingdom was in confrontation with Germany due in particular to its mobilization at the of the Security Council once morest the decision of the United States to recognize the Moroccanity of the Moroccan Sahara and when the crisis with Spain was regarding to break out following the decision of the northern neighbor to hospitalize, without referring to the Moroccan authorities, the secretary general of the Sahrawi separatist movement of the Polisario Front, Brahim Ghali, suffering from Covid-19.
Ambiguous position
Germany and Spain have since changed their position, the second country mentioned going since March 14, 2022 to consider the initiative for the negotiation of a statute of autonomy as “the most serious, realistic and credible for the resolution of the dispute” around the Moroccan Sahara, which calls into question the famous “at the same time” for which one often criticizes even in France Mr. Macron, who always tries to maintain the most ambiguous position possible. Until when will he stay on the same line? And can he?
Finally, it should not be overlooked that, apart from Mr. Macron, part of the French establishment does not seem to see favorably a strengthening of relations with Morocco: we know, for example, that its Minister of Europe and Foreign Affairs and, it should be emphasized, Jean-Yves Le Drian, former Minister of Defense under the presidency of François Hollande, has a leaning more towards Algeria because he considers that securing the Sahara and of the Sahel in Libya and Mali passes through the eastern neighbour, while economically, many of them now have Morocco as a direct competitor, particularly in West Africa, where the Kingdom is gradually gradually become the first African investor and took the classically French market shares in services, telecoms and construction.
This economic plan also covers the Moroccan-Moroccan context, strictly speaking, where we know that the French leaders would like France to keep the privileged place which was for a long time its own: a problem for it, Morocco has opted for the diversification of its partners, preparing for example to offer the construction of the future Casablanca-Marrakesh-Agadir high-speed line (LGV) to China, or, at a more strategic level, making the deliberate choice to buy its armament from the United States rather than from it (Uncle Sam should in particular monopolize the lion’s share of the 20 billion dollars of military investment that the Royal Armed Forces (FAR) are currently in the process of ‘carry out).
So to speak, and as King Mohammed VI pointed out in a still famous speech he made on the occasion of the first Morocco-Gulf countries summit at the end of April 2016 in Dariya, Saudi Arabia, “Morocco (.. .) is not the preserve of any country”, and one might also add this, as many Moroccan officials often remind us: the Morocco of today is no longer the Morocco of yesterday . It is up to Mr. Macron to take into consideration the new deal and to take advantage of his second five-year term to rectify the situation; if he doesn’t, Morocco might lose, but then he probably won’t be the only one…
