It is once again the honeymoon between France and Morocco concomitant with the deterioration of the relationship between Paris and Algiers.
President Emmanuel Macron is expected in Rabat at the end of October for a visit that was completely unthinkable only a few months ago because of the multiple offenses made by King Mohammed VI, his media and his services to the French president and his country.
The most resounding grievance publicly accused of Morocco and on which we could legitimately think that Paris was not going to give up so easily, is the spying on Emmanuel Macron’s personal phone by the Moroccan services via spyware. Israeli Pegasus.
The scandal was revealed in July 2021 by a consortium of international media, unveiling a vast espionage operation having targeted thousands of phones of Moroccan opponents since 2019 but also of foreign journalists and political leaders, notably Algerian, Spanish and French.
Spying, blackmail, insults…
The act is extremely serious even if the operation was limited to journalists and internal opponents. Targeting very senior foreign military and political officials, including the president of a large “friendly” country, was unthinkable. Passing the towel was even less so.
In the months that followed, the two countries were on the verge of rupture and the French president suffered another no less serious offense when, during a telephone explanation, King Mohamed VI hung up on him, according to the revelations made in June 2023 by the Moroccan writer close to the royal palace Tahar Ben Jelloun.
At the end of 2022 and the beginning of 2023, the kingdom’s actions landed in the European Parliament, which adopted two very unfavorable resolutions in quick succession, one condemning attacks on press freedom by the Moroccan government and another for its involvement in the Pegasus scandal.
The Makhzen saw the hand of Emmanuel Macron via its deputies who sit in the Renew group in the EP.
There then followed a virulent media campaign which went beyond all limits against the French president and certain deputies, including the leader of the Macaroonist deputies in Strasbourg, a certain Stéphane Séjourné who would become Minister of Foreign Affairs and whom Macron would charge “personally”, in February 2024, to open “a new chapter with Morocco”.
At the end of the same month, Séjourné almost apologized to Rabat, already marking the path for the future recognition of the “Moroccanness” of Western Sahara.
France and Morocco reconcile after a long period of offenses
However, before this “new chapter” Emmanuel Macron was seriously insulted by the Moroccan press as a head of state has rarely been.
In September 2023, 360.ma published a series of articles of incredible violence against the French presidential couple, with sordid insinuations on the gender of Brigitte Macron or the sexual orientation of her husband.
Many titles in the international press, including the Belgian daily Le Soir, had pointed out that the owner of the newspaper responsible for these attacks is the king’s private secretary, a certain Mohamed Mounir Majidi.
This series of defamatory articles followed criticism expressed in France towards the Moroccan authorities for their management of the High Atlas earthquake which occurred a few weeks earlier, on September 8.
The French press notably revealed that when the earthquake struck, Mohammed VI was having a good time in one of his Parisian residences.
The earthquake was an opportunity for Rabat to inflict another offense, this time on the whole of France. Morocco accepted international aid from Spain, the United Kingdom, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates and disdainfully refused that offered by Algeria and France.
The Moroccan attitude was experienced in France, among the political class with the exception of the far right and public opinion, as a real humiliation.
How Paris passed the sponge on the actions of Mohammed VI
Without even these “humiliations”, Paris had many other reasons to at least keep its distance from the kingdom, such as the human rights abuses regularly reported and denounced including by the European Parliament, the massacre of sub-Saharan migrants in June 2022, the blackmail exerted on Spain and all of Europe on the question of Western Sahara or even the “migratory” bomb dropped in May 2021 on the Spanish enclave of Ceuta.
Inexplicably, Emmanuel Macron has done more than give up after long months of offenses and reprehensible behavior by the Moroccan authorities.
Last July, he recognized without compensation – at least apparently – the “Moroccanness” of Western Sahara, a gift that none of his predecessors had agreed to offer even when the Kingdom was still a respectful ally of France and of its leaders.
For Le Canard Enchaîné, President Macron sat down on “affairs of state to patch things up with King Mohammed”.
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