Funny crisis. Everyone knew what was happening, the storm that was brewing, but no one let it show. Not even on this June 13th, in Bari, under the Apulian sun (Italy), during an apparently warm exchange between the French president, Emmanuel Macron, and his Algerian counterpart, Abdelmadjid Tebboune, on the sidelines of the G7 summit. Not even at this celebration of July 14th, in Algiers, on the heights of El-Biar, in the garden of the Villa des Oliviers, residence of the French ambassador with a breathtaking view of the bay, where the owner of the place, Stéphane Romatet, praised the“unique proximity” and the “density like no other” of the relationship with Algeria. Flanked by two ministers and several senior Algerian officials, Mr. Romatet added that “The fate of our two countries is closely linked” and so? “we need each other” in the face of the crises (security, climate, migration) that are ravaging the region.
Thus, until the last moment, appearances were saved and excesses were preserved, while an imminent French strategic shift, contrary to Algerian interests, was known and planned. On July 30, Macron sent a letter to the King of Morocco, Mohammed VI, solemnly consecrating France’s support for the thesis of Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara. In the eyes of Paris, the Moroccan autonomy plan dating from 2007 is now considered “single base” debate with a view to a political solution in this disputed territory.
For better or worse (depending on your point of view), Macron added in his letter that the “present and future” from the former Spanish colony – which Rabat took control of in 1975 to the great dismay of Algiers, supporting the Sahrawi independence movement of the Polisario Front – “They are part of the framework of Moroccan sovereignty”. The change of pro-Moroccan position is resounding, even if France continues to invoke the resolutions of the United Nations Security Council, which provide for the very theoretical prospect of a referendum on self-determination. Until then, the Moroccan autonomy plan was considered in Paris as “a serious and credible base”but nothing more. “A base” become “the only basis” : a real qualitative leap.
The French dubbing was immediately applauded in Rabat, where the king had treated Emmanuel Macron coldly for three years. The Franco-Moroccan relationship can thus return to its foundations, those of a historical complicity that had weakened over time, in particular with the disappearance of the Chirac generation. In Algiers, anger erupts. The Quai d’Orsay, which has always wanted to free itself from the dilemma of a “zero-sum game” In the Maghreb – warming up to Morocco without cooling off to Algeria – they must resign themselves to it. The breakdown, in the summer of 2021, of relations between the two enemy brothers of North Africa, the collateral damage of the end of the ceasefire in Western Sahara that occurred in November 2020 and the normalization of ties between Morocco and Israel the following month have made France’s attempts at balance increasingly precarious.
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