French President Emmanuel Macron has gone one step further than Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez in 2022 by proclaiming on Tuesday that Morocco’s autonomy plan is “the only basis” for a solution to the Western Sahara conflict. In a statement released by the royal cabinet in Rabat and by the Elysée in Paris, the French leader declared that France considers that “the present and future of Western Sahara fall within the framework of Morocco’s sovereignty.”
Macron addressed Mohammed VI during the Moroccan Throne Day, which marks the 25th anniversary of the Alawite monarch’s accession to power, to reaffirm “the intangible permanence of the French position in favour of national security (…) both at the national and international level”, in a clear reference to his country’s status as a permanent member of the UN Security Council.
In an unusual preemptive move, the Algerian government revealed last Thursday that French diplomacy was preparing to give “explicit support to the autonomy plan for the territory of Western Sahara within the supposed sovereignty of Morocco.” The Foreign Ministry then warned France in an official statement that it “will have to face the consequences of the decision” and attributed to it “full responsibility.”
Algiers, which broke diplomatic relations with Morocco in 2021, supports the position of the Polisario Front, which advocates holding a self-determination referendum to achieve independence. Since 1975, when Spain abandoned its former colony of Western Sahara and ceded control of the territory to the Moroccan authorities, the leadership of the independence movement has been granted asylum along with tens of thousands of refugees in Tindouf (southwest Algeria).
Since 2007, France has supported the autonomy plan for the Sahara, as “a solution [entre otras] to the conflict”, but Morocco has recently called on it to adopt the formula expressed in 2022 by the President of the Spanish Government, also in a letter addressed to King Mohammed VI, to unequivocally present the Moroccan proposal as “the most serious, realistic and credible basis for resolving this dispute”.
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