“The link that unites Morocco to France must be restored”

Relations between Paris and Rabat have been under severe strain in recent years, particularly due to France’s rapprochement with Algeria and its ambiguous position on the Sahara issue. Christophe Boutin, a political scientist and professor of public law in Caen, believes that it is time for his country to renew ties with Morocco.

“Beyond this, through its effective collaboration in the areas of justice and intelligence, Morocco directly participates in the security of the states of the northern Mediterranean, including ours. And yet, while the partnership seems a pragmatic obviousness, something has broken down since 2017 between Rabat and the Élysée. We know the tension that exists between Rabat and Algiers, born mainly from Algeria’s instrumentalization of the question of Western Sahara, still pending at the UN,” writes Christophe Boutin, political scientist and professor of public law in Caen, in an article published by The Sunday Journal. While the “governments of Jacques Chirac or Nicolas Sarkozy maintained a balance between a real partnership with Morocco and often more tense contacts with an unstable Algeria”, the French president “Emmanuel Macron has given in to all the demands, symbolic or not, of an Algerian power which remains locked in a headlong flight towards victimhood and demands our eternal repentance”, he notes.