RABAT, Morocco (AP) — French President Emmanuel Macron arrives in Morocco on Monday, where he is expected to meet the North African kingdom’s leaders and discuss partnerships on trade, climate change and immigration.
During the president’s three-day visit to Rabat, he will meet King Mohammed VI and Prime Minister Aziz Akhannouch and address the Moroccan parliament.
It comes months after Macron changed France’s long-standing public position and backed Morocco’s autonomy plan for the disputed Western Sahara. The move endeared the country to Morocco and alienated it from Algeria, which hosts refugee camps run by the pro-independence Polisario Front and has long pushed for a U.N.-organized referendum to resolve the conflict.
In the days leading up to the visit, Moroccan publications praised the “warm reunion” and a “new honeymoon” between the two countries, while French flags flew throughout Rabat.
France and Morocco have historically cooperated on issues ranging from counter-terrorism to Western Sahara. Morocco is the main destination for French investments in Africa and France is Morocco’s most important trading partner. Morocco imports French grains, sustainable energy infrastructure such as turbines and weapons. Morocco exports goods to France, including tomatoes, cars and aircraft parts.
Moroccans are among the largest foreign-born communities in France, where North African immigrants form an important political constituency and are a focal point in debates over the role of Islam and immigration in French society. In recent months, France’s new interior minister, Bruno Retailleau, has urged the country to take a tough approach to immigration and seek deals with countries such as Morocco to better prevent potential migrants from entering Europe.
During Macron’s latest visit to Morocco, he and King Mohammed VI inaugurated Al Boraq, Africa’s first high-speed railway, made possible by French financing and trains manufactured by the French firm Alstrom.
Despite close ties, relations between France and Morocco, which was a French protectorate from 1912 to 1956, were sometimes fragile. In 2021, Morocco suspended consular relations. France temporarily reduced the number of visas offered to Moroccans to protest its refusal to provide documents needed to deport people who have migrated to France without permission.
Relations between the two countries deteriorated further that year when a 2021 report found that Morocco’s security services had used Israeli spyware to infiltrate the devices of activists and politicians, including Macron. Morocco denied and denounced the allegations.
