Western Sahara: Michèle Decaster Attacks Macron Over Supporting the Fictitious “Autonomy”

The Secretary-General of the French Association for Friendship and Solidarity with the Peoples of Africa (AFASPA), Michèle Decaster, criticized the support of French President Emmanuel Macron for the so-called illusory autonomy plan for Western Sahara announced by Morocco.

Decaster said that French President Emmanuel Macron is not breaking with France’s colonial history. He is thus serving the commercial interests of business circles.

In her article published in the newspaper “L’Humanité”, Decaster pointed out that “French policy is strongly marked by a colonial past dating back nearly two hundred years”, noting that the French president “is trying to confront France’s loss of influence on the African continent”.

The French President had revealed in a letter he sent to the King of Morocco last July that he considers that “the present and future of Western Sahara fall within the framework of (alleged) Moroccan sovereignty.”

Michèle Decaster considered that the official choice of the French President “helps the Moroccan monarch in his efforts to support the illegal occupation of the neighbouring country, from whose natural resources the Kingdom has benefited since the signing of the ceasefire agreement in 1991.”

Nevertheless, Decaster stated that “businessmen are celebrating the expected returns from the Moroccan market and the prospects of exploiting the Sahrawi subsoil, which is rich in largely untapped mineral resources.”

Regarding France’s increasing support for the so-called Moroccan illusory plan for Western Sahara, she stressed that the King of Morocco “has no doubts about French support for Morocco in the UN Security Council every time the mandate of the United Nations Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO) is renewed, while it has been meticulously careful for thirty-three years not to include human rights in its mandate.”