The future will tell what the rhetoric and lyricism of circumstances is and what marks a true turning point, a lasting change. However, one thing is already certain: Emmanuel Macron set high his ambition to relaunch Franco-Moroccan relations in his speech delivered on Tuesday, October 29, before Parliament in Rabat, the highlight of the second day of his state visit to Cherifian kingdom. . It was only necessary to point out the repeated use of the word “strategic”. “A strategic duty”, he even said, referring to the need to strengthen ties between France and Morocco and, further afield, between Europe and Africa at a time of worsening migratory, climatic and food tensions.
Therefore, it is quite natural that he reused the word fetish when proposing to King Mohammed VI to include the two countries in a “new strategic framework”, revealed from the Parliament podium. Such a format would make Morocco, Macron said, “The first country outside the European Union. [avec lequel] “We would get involved together with the same intensity.” A text that formalizes this “new strategic framework” could be signed during a state visit of the king to Paris in 2025, on the occasion of the 70thmy anniversary of the joint declaration made in La Celle-Saint-Cloud (Yvelines). The document, signed on November 6, 1955 by Sultan Mohammed V and Antoine Pinay – then French Minister of Foreign Affairs – paved the way for the kingdom’s independence the following year.
With this announced state visit of Mohammed VI to France, the Franco-Moroccan agenda is destined to become denser on an unprecedented scale, while the abundance of contracts, letters of intent and other partnership projects signed on Monday and Tuesday in Rabat – worth 10 billion euros – will lay the foundations for multifaceted cooperation in the fields of energy transition, infrastructure and transport, education, digital technology, etc.
Many potential synergies, Macron insisted in his speech to Moroccan deputies, at the service of the imperative of “decarbonization” of the kingdom’s economy through the production of renewable energy (solar, wind, green hydrogen), the latter can also provide a “proximity supply” to Europe. Another area of convergence, Morocco could allow a “value chain integration” to protect Europe and Africa from “fragmentation of international trade”. Thus, in Macron’s eyes, the kingdom constitutes “a platform”, TO “intermediary” between Europe and Africa. Brief, “a unique path”.
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