France’s President visits Morocco amid hopes for 'New Era' in Western Sahara

French President Emmanuel Macron arrives Monday in Morocco, where he is expected to meet with the North African kingdom’s leaders and discuss partnerships regarding trade, climate change and immigration.

During the three-day visit to Rabat, Macron is scheduled to meet with King Mohammed VI and Prime Minister Aziz Akhannouch and address Morocco’s Parliament.

The trip comes months after Macron changed France’s longstanding 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 governed by the pro-independence Polisario Front and has long pushed for a U.N.-organized referendum to solve the conflict.

In the days leading up to the visit, Moroccan publications lauded the “warm reunion” and a “new honeymoon” between the two countries while French flags were hung throughout Rabat.

France and Morocco have historically partnered on issues ranging from counterterrorism to Western Sahara. Morocco is the top destination for French investment in Africa and France is Morocco’s top trade partner. Morocco imports French cereals, weapons and renewable energy infrastructure like turbines. France imports goods from Morocco including tomatoes, cars and airplane parts.

Moroccans are among the largest foreign-born communities in France, where North African immigrants are a key political constituency and a focal point of debates about the roles of Islam and immigration in French society.

In recent months, France’s new Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau has pushed for the country to take a hard-line approach toward immigration and seek deals with countries like Morocco to better prevent would-be migrants from crossing into Europe.

On Macron’s last visit to Morocco, he and King Mohammed VI inaugurated Al Boraq, Africa’s first high-speed rail line, made possible by French financing and trains manufactured by the French firm Alstrom.

Despite close ties, relations have at times been fragile between France and Morocco, which was a French protectorate from 1912 to 1956. In 2021, Morocco suspended consular relations after France momentarily reduced the number of visas offered to Moroccans in protest of its refusal to provide documents needed to deport people who migrated to France without authorization.

Relations between the two countries soured further that year, when a 2021 report revealed Morocco’s security services had used Israeli spyware to infiltrate the devices of activists and politicians, including Macron. Morocco denied and sued over the allegations.