While relations between France and Morocco have warned since last summer, Bruno Retailleau announced the creation of a Franco-Moroccan working group to identify the nationality of migrants in an irregular situation in France.
The French Minister of the Interior, Bruno Retailleau, announced this Monday April 15 in Rabat the creation of a Franco-Moroccan working group responsible for helping to identify the nationality of migrants in an irregular situation in France, with a view to facilitating their readmission in their country of origin.
The visit of Bruno Retailleau is part of a context of Franco-Moroccan rapprochement after the recognition by Paris, in the summer of 2024, of Moroccan sovereignty on the disputed territory of Western Sahara.
On the contrary, recognition that has caused tensions with Algeria, with whom relations are constantly deteriorating.
“Total commitment” of Morocco
Bruno Retailleau said he was “prohibiting any reaction” on the crisis with Algeria as long as he is in Morocco. A few hours before his meeting with his Moroccan counterpart Abdelouafi Laftit, Algiers asked 12 French officials to leave his territory, according to French diplomacy.
In Rabat, Bruno Retailleau reported an agreement to “improve cooperation for readmissions”, in particular through the upcoming establishment of a “mixed group” in charge “to instruct Moroccan nationality or not” a certain number of migrants in an irregular situation.
“I think that having French and Moroccan mixed teams to carry out this identification work will change things a lot,” he added.
The Moroccan Ministry of the Interior has reaffirmed, in a press release, “the total commitment of the Moroccan part to work for the development of a common benchmark”, adding that a bilateral cooperation roadmap had been adopted to carry the “common ambitions” of the two countries.
Warming Franco-Moroccan relations
The recognition by France of Moroccan sovereignty on Western Sahara has ended several years of tensions, notably linked to the migratory question.
France had divided by two the number of visas granted to Moroccans in 2021-2022 to push the Kingdom to take over more of its nationals expelled by the French authorities, resulting in strong diplomatic tensions.
The trip of Bruno Retailleau follows the meeting between the two ministers during the visit of Emmanuel Macron to Morocco last October, during which the French president had announced a “strengthened partnership” between France and Morocco to combat illegal immigration and various trafficking.
At the heart of the October discussions were the readmissions of Moroccan nationals in an irregular situation, which France wishes to expel, but whose dismissal is often blocked due to the absence of a consular pass delivered by Rabat.
Western Sahara, an ex-Spanish-colony considered as a non-autonomous territory by the United Nations, has opposed Morocco for half a century to the Sahrawi independence from the Polisario Front, supported by Algeria.
