Deprived of domestic affairs, Emmanuel Macron directs all his energy internationally, with the same passion and the same distraction. To erase several disputes which plague Franco-Moroccan diplomatic relations, the French president embarked on a state visit which never succeeded in getting rid of the controversies which he continued to fuel. Between contracts and official dinners, the president even had a history lesson on medieval Andalusia intended to illustrate living together between the two shores of the Mediterranean. If the statement is as worrying as it is inaccurate, it nevertheless testifies to the feverishness of our turbulent relationship with the Cherifian kingdom which has existed since the 16th century.
In 1532, a first diplomatic mission failed to release the navy of François 1is in the ports of the “Fez” sultanate of Ben Mohamed. Relations between the two kingdoms were consolidated, however, in the fight against the Habsburg monarchy and Barbary piracy. In the middle of the century, 500 “Frankish soldiers” supported the Morisco troops. In 1664, the new Alaouite dynasty wanted to get closer to the kingdom of Louis XIV by planning, in vain, the union of its sovereign, Moulay Ismaïl, with the sister of the Capetian. Worse, France's alliance with Spain distances it from Morocco.
Cultural cooperation
In the 19th century, the French presence thickened in the Maghreb under the influence of Orientalism and the Ottoman threat. The protection of Algeria then made Morocco a strategic promontory. Initiated by the Republican left, French colonial policy led in March 1912 to the establishment of a protectorate over Sultan Moulay Hafid's Morocco. The figure of Marshal Lyautey, respectful of local traditions, marks Moroccan memory. His successors, less happy, worked hard to apply Parisian directives indiscriminately for the benefit of large industrial companies. From the revolt of Abd El Krim (1925) to the clumsy deposition of Mohammed V (1953), relations became tarnished.
The Algerian War accelerated the decolonization movement. On March 2, 1956, a protocol ensured the independence of the country. After a few convulsions, Morocco began, unlike its neighbor, a cultural and technical cooperation combining a feeling of pride but also of gratitude with regard to French heritage. The country is thus not experiencing the exodus of the pieds-noirs from Algeria. Hassan II succeeded his father in February 1961, a month later France left the country for good. The Ben Barka affair (1965) strained relations with Paris, which accused the Alawite sovereign of being the initiator of his kidnapping in Paris. The cloth is burning. Giscard will wait until 1976 to be the first French president to visit Morocco.
While the French presence becomes residual, migratory flows from Morocco intensify
The status of Western Sahara, cause “sacred”, offers a new field of confrontation. The supporters of Greater Morocco thus raged in 1960 against the nuclear tests carried out there and in the face of the proclaimed independence of Mauritania for a long time in the Moroccan orbit. The then Spanish Sahara was finally recovered by Morocco at the end of the audacious “green march” of 1975.
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While the French presence becomes residual, migratory flows from Morocco are intensifying. There were more than half a million of them when the affair of the Creil veil broke out in 1989, largely resolved by the King of Morocco, highlighting the importance. Preferring the Algeria of the FLN, the French left is campaigning against the thousand-year-old monarchy that the king has tried to modernize despite the attacks of which he has been the target several times. In 1990, Gilles Perrault's pamphlet, Our friend the kingmakes the Commander of the Faithful of the oldest state in the Islamic world a torture satrap. He was mainly criticized for opposing the Angolan communists who threatened Mobutu's power.
The visa issue
Since then, the issue of visas has been a reminder, with mechanical regularity, of the quiet deterioration of relations between Rabat and Paris. Under Emmanuel Macron, the gap widens further with the Pegasus spy affair, the denunciation of Rif cannabis production, the rapprochement with Algeria and the proposal for aid after the 2023 earthquake experienced as paternalistic arrogance on the part of King Mohamed VI.
Public opinion, Moroccan and French, has also had little taste for the presence of criminals.
Practicing the diplomatic turnaround with consummate art, the French president made a brutal rapprochement with Morocco by recognizing it as guardianship over Western Sahara. Did he have a choice? Morocco had already obtained this assurance from Donald Trump in 2020, allied itself with Israel, obtained the abandonment of Spanish support for the Polisario Front which is trying to destabilize this part of the Sahara. The use of French is eroded by English. French preeminence is threatened.
The official visit organized by Paris was to strengthen ties between the two nations, pushing Emmanuel Macron to believe he was authorized to speak informally to the sovereign. Public opinion, Moroccan and French, also had little taste for the presence of convicts in the delegation supposed to dazzle the authorities. The French president “ decided to write a new book together “. There is still time to rewrite the introduction.
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