France Is Accused Of Influencing Madrid Over Western Sahara

The French position, biased towards the Moroccan regime’s thesis regarding the Sahrawi issue, is not limited to the stance expressed by the occupant of the Élysée Palace, Emmanuel Macron, at the end of last July, and later in the capital of the Alawite Kingdom. It extends to pressuring the neighboring Spain to align with the side that opposes the legitimate rights of the Sahrawi people.

This serious accusation was leveled by the head of the Algerian National Committee for Solidarity with the Sahrawi People, Mr. Said Layachi, in a program on the International Radio Channel, stating: “There is a French influence on the decisions of the Spanish government regarding the Sahrawi issue since the tripartite agreement in Madrid in 1975.”

In the opinion of the human rights activist and defender of the Sahrawi people’s rights, France “supported the Moroccan occupier and worked to obstruct the implementation of the self-determination referendum approved by the United Nations,” explaining that what drives France to pressure the Spanish government is its constant desire to target Algeria as a party supporting the Sahrawi people’s right to self-determination based on United Nations resolutions.

And although Saïd Layachi did not reveal more details regarding the extent of French authorities’ influence on Spain in the Sahrawi issue, Paris’s staunch defense of the autonomy plan since its launch in 2007 reinforces the words of the President of the Algerian National Committee for Solidarity with the Sahrawi People.

France is considered the first country to embrace and defend the autonomy plan for Western Sahara, and this was during the presidency of former President Nicolas Sarkozy. Reports related to this issue indicate that Paris planned and formulated this scheme since the late 1990s. The goal behind this, as Saeed Al-Ayashi says, is to take revenge on Algeria, which managed to defeat colonial France and expel its occupying army in 1962.

The credibility of this approach can be discerned by understanding the positions of French political parties that support the Moroccan regime’s thesis at the expense of the inalienable rights of the Sahrawi people, which are generally right-wing and far-right in orientation, belonging to circles dreaming of a “French Algeria.”

And contrary to the provisions of the European Court of Justice ruling on October 4 of last year, which stated that the Moroccan regime has no sovereignty over the occupied Sahrawi territories, the French president deliberately ignored the European Court’s decision by reaffirming what he said at the end of last July, announcing his support for the alleged sovereignty of the Alaouite regime over the Western Sahara territories, in a blatant challenge to international law and the United Nations, which he claimed to support the efforts of its envoy to Western Sahara, the Swedish-Italian diplomat, Staffan de Mistura.

In further disregard for the provisions of the European Court of Justice ruling and the recommendations of the United Nations, Macron instructed his ambassador to the Kingdom of Morocco, Christophe Lecourtier, to visit the occupied Sahrawi territories at the head of an economic delegation, with the aim of investing in land that European justice has recognized as having no sovereignty of the Moroccan regime over it.

As the Algerian Foreign Ministry responded to the French position at the time, Paris’s support for Rabat’s thesis in Western Sahara falls within the context of colonial regimes supporting each other. However, this will not deter colonized peoples from wrenching their rights, as the Algerian people did until they achieved their wish of expelling the occupier and gaining independence.