Kiosk360. The changes in the positions of the influential countries in the Sahara dossier have laid bare the unhealthy attitude of France which opted for the strategy of “divide and conquer” which it inherited from the time of the protectorate. This article is a press review of the daily Assabah.
King Mohammed VI sent strong messages to Morocco’s traditional and new partners, calling on them to take a stand, unequivocally, to support the Moroccanness of the Sahara. The daily Assabah, which devotes a file to Moroccan-French relations in its edition of Thursday, August 25, underlines that the sovereign could not have been clearer in declaring, in the speech delivered on the occasion of the anniversary of the King and the people, that “the Sahara dossier was the prism through which Morocco considered its international environment. It is also clearly and simply the yardstick that measures the sincerity of the friendships and the effectiveness of the partnerships that he establishes”. By being so direct, the king was addressing friendly countries, led by France, which timidly supported the Moroccan autonomy initiative.
The leaders of France need audacity and a frank political decision to express a clear position on this issue, as the United States, Spain and Germany have done. This means that the Kingdom is no longer conciliatory in its foreign policy and no longer opts for “gentle” and “courteous” diplomatic means to confront the enemies of territorial integrity. The same people who spend billions of dollars to buy off influential lobby groups in international forums, as well as human rights organisations, the media, presidents and deputies of third countries. But, despite the thousands of vile maneuvers they have attempted for half a century, they have failed because Morocco’s causes are just and deserve to be defended with offensive tactics that respond tit for tat.
The daily Assabah emphasizes that the message addressed, indirectly, by the king to France is clear enough to put an end to the disputes which have broken out in the visa reduction files and, previously, to the lies made around the Pegasus affair. Morocco had categorically denied having spied on President Macron, while filing a complaint against several media, including the newspaper “Le Monde”.
Time does things well since the Europeans have recently discovered that it was their intelligence services that used the Pegasus software to spy on their presidents, their parliamentarians and the leaders of political parties. The cold snap between Rabat and Paris is so serious that Emmanuel Macron refrained from visiting Morocco after his re-election, as he had done in 2017. The French president preferred, this time, to go to Algeria which seduced him with the file of the export of gas, after the failure of the military regime which did not succeed in twisting the arm of Spain following its official recognition of the Moroccanity of the Sahara .
The visa reduction could be interpreted as a simple technical file, but it is clear that France used it to put pressure on Morocco in another area. Yet it is the same losing card that Germany used during the crisis that poisoned relations between Berlin and Rabat.
It is to believe that an organization has specialized in the production of files against Morocco by presenting them as being the fruit of research and reasoned documents.
It should not be believed that the tension in Moroccan-French relations is due to the sole refusal of Paris to issue visas to thousands of Moroccans. These are other more sensitive issues relating to the major structuring projects that Morocco has recently launched by opening the door to American and Chinese companies. Without forgetting that the Kingdom has made a great economic breakthrough on the African market, which is not to please France, which feels competition in its traditional stronghold.
In another article, the daily Assabah discusses economic relations between France and Morocco, stating that trade between the two countries reaches 10 billion dollars. It should be noted that Paris has benefited from several economic advantages in our country, without compensation, due to the depth of the historical relations between the two countries, considered as political twins. This is how France won the contract for the Tangier-Casablanca high-speed line (35 billion dirhams), although the Chinese case was less attractive. Without forgetting that the Renault plant in Tangier has enabled the French company to recover commercially and financially after a long period of lean cows.
It is therefore unlikely that France will be able to submit to pressure from Algeria to change its political positions towards Morocco in return for the gas. Because the gas crisis is going to be resolved, one way or another, on a global level. Suffice to say that Moroccan-French relations will continue, provided that France recognizes the Moroccanness of the Sahara to definitively turn the page on this crisis.