Macron Begins To Purge French State Institutions Of Moroccan Makhzen’s Influence

It appears that French President Emmanuel Macron is continuing to prune the influence of the Moroccan Makhzen Regime in the wardrobes of the French state, an approach he has begun to implement since the outbreak of the loathsome “Pegasus” espionage scandal, which implicated the Moroccan regime in telephone spying on senior French officials led by Macron, as well as the political corruption scandals that implicated Rabat in buying MEPs in order to influence decision-making sources in Brussels on issues of interest to the Kingdom of Morocco.
In the latest blow from Paris against Moroccan influence in French state institutions, President Macron’s party, known as ‘Renaissance’, which means ‘Ennahda’ in Arabic, blocked his former deputy (2017/2022) of Moroccan origin, Abdel Majeed Al-Qarab, from running.
On behalf of the party, he preferred to put forward another candidate, Caroline Travers, in the upcoming parliamentary by-election next April, in the ninth constituency of the French abroad, which includes the Maghreb and West Africa, according to the French magazine “Le Point”.
The Moroccan lobby in France considers Caroline Travers to be a politician hostile to Moroccan interests and a defender of Algerian interests because of her proximity to the Franco-Algerian senator Leila Aishi, who is known for her positions in defense of the rights of immigrants, as well as her well-known activity alongside environmentalists (the Greens).
Media linked to the Moroccan Makhzen regime also accuse Leila Aishi of being a staunch defender of the Sahrawi people’s legitimate right to self-determination, which has bolstered their fears that Caroline Travers has been imbued with the French-Algerian politician’s culture of Sahrawi human rights advocacy.
Moroccans base their suspicion of Caroline Travers’ support for Algerian interests on a videotape found on the electoral website of Senator Leila Aishi, in which the candidate for the French legislative by-election says: “I want to rely on Leila Aichi”, whose origins are closer to Algerian than Moroccan interests.
The race for the legislative elections hinges on one seat, which was won by Karim Bencheikh of the New Popular, Ecological and Social Coalition (NEP) of the left, led by Jean-Luc Melenchon, in the elections held last July, but the Constitutional Council annulled the results due to a technical defect in the electronic voting process.
A major factor in the decision was the fact that a representative of Moroccan origin, Abd al-Majid al-Qarab, who is a member of the European Parliament, was prevented from standing for the ruling party.