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00:00French President Emmanuel Macron begins a three-day state visit to Morocco this Monday,
00:05a sign of rapprochement after years of tensions between the two countries.
00:09Macron will even be welcomed on the tarmac by King Mohammed VI, a rare honour.
00:14Much of the strain derives from France's ambiguous stance on the disputed Western Sahara
00:19and Macron's quest for closer ties with Algeria.
00:23The Western Sahara is a Spanish-Conolly colony largely controlled by Morocco, but claimed
00:28by the Algeria-backed Polisario Front.
00:31Let's get some more analysis on this then.
00:34We can bring in Paul Melly, who's a consulting fellow of the Africa Programme at Chatham
00:40House.
00:41Thank you very much for speaking to us on France 24.
00:45Does Macron's stance on the Western Sahara constitute a breakthrough in bilateral relations?
00:52I think it really does.
00:54There have been a lot of other irritants in Moroccan-French relations over the last
01:00two or three years.
01:02For example, rows over visas, rows over Morocco's readiness to accept people whose immigration
01:09status was rejected by France, accusations about claims that Morocco might have had a
01:17connection to do with bugging, intelligence bugging of senior French figures, those sorts
01:25of things.
01:26But the real big issue is the Western Sahara, which of course is a territory that was originally,
01:33as you mentioned, a Spanish colony until the mid-1970s after the death of General Franco,
01:40when Spain became a democracy.
01:42And the Western Sahara, before its status could be finally decided at an international
01:50level, was taken over, occupied by Morocco.
01:53And then a guerrilla movement, the Polisario, emerged fighting for Western Sahara independence.
02:01And the conflict has really been deadlocked since then, with Morocco occupying most of
02:07Western Sahara and a very large number of Moroccans coming to settle in the territory.
02:14Quite a lot of investment and development.
02:17But Polisario still active in parts of the territory beyond a defensive sand wall that
02:24the Moroccan military built.
02:28And crucially, with Polisario, the independence fight is backed by Algeria.
02:33So around Tanduf in the west, far west of the Algerian Sahara, that's really where Polisario
02:43is now headquartered.
02:44So there's been over decades this complete deadlock, and it's become very linked to the
02:50many difficulties in relations between Algeria and Morocco.
02:55But in late July, France actually shifted its position and officially for the first
03:01time said that it felt that the future of the Western Sahara had to lie within an autonomy
03:09plan the Moroccans had drawn up.
03:12And what does that mean for Algeria-French relations then?
03:16Well, it's very difficult because President Macron has also made a big effort over recent
03:23years to try and improve relations with Algeria.
03:28The independence war in the 1950s, when Algerians fought for independence from France, was particularly
03:37brutal and bloody on both sides.
03:39It was a devastating conflict which left scars in the relationship for decades.
03:46And Macron's gone out of his way to try and repair that relationship and recognize the
03:56difficult past.
03:57For example, a very prominent French historian was appointed to write a report really looking
04:03at, if you like, the harsh truths about that conflict and implicitly some of the terrible
04:15things that were done by French forces during the course of that conflict.
04:20And he has worked hard to build up a much more cooperative approach with the Algerians.
04:26But then with this decision now to accept the Moroccan stance or come very, not completely
04:34accept it, but come very close to the Moroccan stance on the Western Sahara, that has brought
04:41a halt to the rapprochement that was underway with Algeria.
04:46And of course, this is a difficult issue for many countries.
04:52France isn't the only country to shift its stance.
04:55Spain, notably, which also has a colonial connection with Morocco from past history,
05:03also recently shifted ground.
05:06But for the French, because France was the colonial power in Algeria and the main colonial
05:12power in Morocco over so many years, and there are such deep social and political and economic
05:20ties between France and the Maghreb countries, that has a particular sensitivity.
05:29And Morocco also has friendly relations with military regimes in the Sahel.
05:34Could this rapprochement with Morocco and France mean that it could ease France's troubles
05:40with countries like Burkina Faso, Niger or Mali?
05:45It might.
05:46It's obviously not the main factor in the visit, which is really about bilateral relations
05:51and the huge economic potential, for example.
05:55A huge number of French business people are accompanying Macron on this trip, and French
06:01companies hope for some big contracts.
06:03But Morocco has been unusual in reaching out to these three military regimes in Mali, Niger
06:11and Burkina Faso, at a time when they've been under pressure from ECOWAS, the West
06:17African bloc.
06:19That's to say the countries along the coast of West Africa.
06:25And Morocco has reached out and offered to the Sahel regimes an alternative trade route,
06:32an alternative trade gateway.
06:34Now making that practical would be very difficult, because it would mean developing trade routes
06:41across the Sahara, where security conditions are very difficult, with jihadist armed groups
06:46very active.
06:48But symbolically it was significant.
06:52And so with the rapprochement in relations between France and Morocco, that in the background
07:00might help to shift the ground a bit.
07:02In talking with some Sahelian officials over recent months, they've been saying, oh, well,
07:08the pressure will be a bit easier now because Morocco has reached out to us and offered
07:13us this alternative trade gateway that avoids the West African coastal countries.
07:19Well, that was always more of a gesture than a hard economic reality.
07:25But all the same, the fact that France and Morocco are now shifting onto more common
07:31ground will help possibly ease France's relationships in that really very difficult Sahelian crisis.
07:41And tell us then, it's worth noting, I mean, Macron's not going alone, he's going with
07:45a delegation.
07:46And as you mentioned, there's a focus on business deals for this visit.
07:50Can you just tell us about that?
07:52Yes.
07:53Well, although Western Sahara has a very small population, it has really important
07:57phosphate reserves.
07:59And of course, it is, as the name suggests, it's in the Sahara Desert.
08:04So very high level sunshine.
08:07And it's coastal.
08:08It's a strip along the coast of the west of the African continent between Morocco and
08:14Mauritania.
08:15And so there's great potential for solar power and wind power.
08:20And French companies are very interested in that within Western Sahara itself.
08:25And then in Morocco, of course, Morocco is a large economy.
08:29It already has significant, it's already very developed in sectors like banking and even,
08:35for example, aerospace.
08:37There's a very modern power factory with French investment outside Tangier already.
08:45And other French companies now, groups such as Airbus, for example, Total, the energy
08:52company, the French companies that are very active in construction of railway trains,
09:00they all have aspirations and hopes for big contracts.
09:04And it's going to be, in that sense, quite a significant economic breakthrough.
09:12And the symbolism of welcoming Macron at the airport after those earlier difficult
09:18issues around visas and intelligence and so on over the last couple of years will be really
09:24important.
09:25But it still poses regional questions because Algeria remains there, of course, strongly
09:33supporting Polisario.
09:35Polisario remains active, even though there hasn't really been a fighting in the last
09:40several years.
09:43And, of course, this also matters for Mauritania, which is another key partner of France and
09:48which lies to the south of Western Sahara.
09:52Paul Nelly, I'm going to have to cut you off there.
09:54I'm very sorry.
09:55That's all we have time for.
09:57Thank you very much for your analysis.
09:58That's Paul Nelly from Chatham House's Africa programme.