The French ambassador to Morocco, Christophe Lecourtier, has broken a taboo with his visit to Western Sahara, the first by a senior European diplomat to the territory of the former Spanish colony, 80% controlled by the Maghreb country. Lecourtier, who flew to El Aaiún on Monday afternoon, has an agenda this Tuesday that includes work sessions in the Sahrawi capital and Dakhla aimed at contributing to the “economic and social development” of the Sahara, as detailed in a statement. the French legation in Rabat. Lecourtier travels accompanied by those responsible for culture, education and economic affairs of the embassy. Fifty businessmen and directors of French companies will also attend a conference to promote business in both Sahrawi cities.
In January 2021, in the final days of President Donald Trump’s first term, the then US ambassador to Morocco, David Fischer, set a precedent by becoming the first senior Western diplomat to visit the Sahara territory, considered by the UN as “non-autonomous” or pending decolonization. The justice of the European Union indirectly recognized last month the right to the “principle of self-determination” of the Sahrawi people, in a ruling that overturned the fishing and agricultural agreements of the North African country with the Twenty-seven.
Lecourtiuer’s unprecedented Sahrawi tour is formally intended to extend French consular assistance and prepare the creation of a cultural center of the French Alliance in El Aaiún, as well as to hold informative meetings with local authorities and representatives of the Sahrawi population. The visit comes after President Emmanuel Macron reaffirmed two weeks ago before the Rabat Parliament that France contemplates “the present and future of the Sahara within the framework of Morocco’s sovereignty.”
The delegation of French businessmen attended this Tuesday in El Aaiún the presentation of a regional development plan prepared by the Government of Morocco for the Sahara. On Wednesday he is scheduled to visit large projects undertaken by the Rabat authorities in the south of the territory, such as the large desalination plant in which the French group Engie and the Moroccan company Nareva, from the Al Mada holding, belonging to the Moroccan royal family, participate. . In his recent official visit, President Macron announced that his country’s companies “will accompany the development of the territory [del Sáhara] with investments in lasting initiatives.”
The French diplomatic and economic presence coincides with an increase in armed incidents between the Moroccan Army and the Polisario Front, supported by Algeria and which demands self-determination for the former Spanish colony. At the end of 2020, the Polisario also broke the ceasefire that it had maintained since 1991 – when 15 years of open war with Morocco ended – and resumed a conflict considered by the UN as “low-intensity hostilities.”
Drone attacks against Polisario
In the last week, Morocco claims to have killed seven Sahrawi militiamen in drone attacks. Two of them perished in the Gleibat el Fula area (southeast), near the wall or embankment built by Morocco that divides the territory, when a convoy of vehicles was bombed from the air. On Saturday, five more Polisario combatants lost their lives, according to the Moroccan press, in the vicinity of Mahbes, a town in the northeast of the Sahara where an event was being held to commemorate the 49th anniversary of the Green March, the mobilization of dozens of thousands of Moroccans organized in 1975 to force the departure of the Spanish troops.
The UN Security Council called on October 31 to reach a “realistic, feasible and mutually acceptable” political solution to the Western Sahara conflict. Algeria did not support the resolution presented by the United States, which contained this declaration, while Russia abstained. The United Nations mediator for the conflict, Staffan de Mistura, came to propose, shortly before, the partition of the territory as a possible way out of the diplomatic blockade, but the parties in the fray ruled it out. While Morocco has only proposed a proposal for autonomy under its sovereignty since 2007; The Polisario Front insists on holding a self-determination referendum that could lead to independence. Three dozen countries, mostly Arab and African, have opened diplomatic representations in the Sahara to recognize Moroccan sovereignty. The Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic, proclaimed in exile by the Polisario Front and admitted as a member state of the African Union, has been recognized by more than 80 countries.
