On an official visit to Rabat, Bruno Retailleau announced this Monday, April 14, the creation of a Franco-Moroccan group responsible for identifying the nationals in an irregular situation on Monday 14 April. Objective: to improve the efficiency of readmission procedures to Morocco. The system must allow “To instruct Moroccan nationality or not of a certain number of illegal immigrants, foreigners in an irregular situation”according to the Minister’s remarks reported by AFP.
“I think that having French and Moroccan mixed teams to carry out this work of identification will change things a lot”said the Minister of the Interior, traveling since Sunday to strengthen bilateral cooperation on migration issues, but also on the fight against drug trafficking, organized crime and terrorism.
Bruno Retailleau welcomed the state of relations between the two countries, which he declared to be “At the highest level”while his Moroccan counterpart, Abdelouafi Laftit, said “The total commitment of the Moroccan part to work for the development of a common repository”.
-Effective cooperation found
After the diplomatic tensions of 2021 – France having half reduced the number of visas to encourage Morocco to resume its expelled nationals -, relations had improved significantly in the summer of 2024, when Paris recognized Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara.
Since then, the results have followed: the consular passing rate has increased from 26 % to 52 % in one year, said BFMTV. The distance to Morocco jumped 60 % between January and February 2025, compared to the same period in 2024. At the beginning of the year, 96 % of Moroccans in an irregular situation with identity papers have been repeated.
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