Since January 19 of this year, the position of the Moroccan ambassador to France remains vacant, at a time when what is described as the “silent crisis” does not seem to be heading towards a solution soon, especially in light of the noticeable French retreat in Africa.
France continues the policy of “unclearness” towards the Kingdom’s first issue related to the Moroccan Sahara, despite Rabat’s assertion on more than one occasion, the most important of which was the royal speech on the occasion of the 69th anniversary of the “king and people’s revolution,” stating that the Sahara file is the criterion by which our country is measured. The sincerity of relations and the effectiveness of partnerships.
International relations experts recorded that Morocco, in turn, “in the face of Paris’s intransigence,” was involved in the African rejection of the French presence, in light of the decline in Paris’s influence in a group of African countries that reject the “top-down policy” pursued by current French President Emmanuel Macron in his dealings with his country’s colonies. previous.
Abdelali Benlias, a professor of public law at the Souissi Faculty of Legal, Economic and Social Sciences in Rabat, said that Moroccan diplomacy manages its political differences with friends, partners and neighboring countries in a way that first takes into account its strategic and national interests, and secondly takes into account geostrategic changes and their impact on political and regional balances, and thirdly interacts cautiously. With the sudden events, until the picture becomes clear, and it takes the appropriate position that is consistent with the rules and principles of international law.
These three rules, Benlias added in his speech to Hespress, are the ones that control its relationship and its positions towards friends as well as opponents alike, and therefore Morocco’s dispute with France is linked to the strategic and national issue of Morocco as king, people and government, which is the issue of the Moroccan Sahara, which the king of the country considered the perspective that determines Future relationships with partners and friends.
As for the expert in international relations, “Unless France changes its gray position on the issue of our territorial integrity, through its recognition, at least, of autonomy as the only option to solve this regional crisis, the silent crisis that defines relations between the two countries will continue.”
The same spokesman considered that the Moroccan position on this bilateral relationship is clear indication that the period of tutelage that France has pursued over African countries for decades has ended, and that the countries that were subject to this tutelage have begun to liberate themselves from it through the statements of the new political leaders that come to power. In it, which opposes the policy of French control over its former colonies, in addition to the fact that the African peoples have begun to hold France responsible for the backwardness experienced by their countries.
For his part, Nabil Al-Andalusi, head of the Maghreb Center for Research and Strategic Studies, considered that Morocco has given, in recent years, more than one indication of refusing to deal with the arrogant French, and refusing to deal with Morocco with a kind of inferiority, exploitation, devotion to dependency, and non-recognition of its national sovereignty over all its lands.
And Al-Andalusi explained, in a statement to Hespress, that “this aversion between the two countries and the diplomatic crisis between them is evidence that France continues to lose a number of its allies in Africa.” However, he reaffirmed that “the strategic interests between Morocco and France remain stronger, in my belief, than the crisis between the two countries today, and the possibility of overcoming them is possible despite the difficulty of the matter and the complexity of the protracted crisis.”
The expert in international relations concluded that Morocco “has a special approach in its relationship with influential countries in the region, including France, and its pillars are briefly the recognition of the Moroccanness of the Sahara, equality, clarity and serving common interests according to the win-win rule.”