Moroccan Sahara: France-Morocco Foundation Calls on Paris to Clarify its Position

The Foundation “France-Morocco, Peace and Sustainable Development”, called on Paris to clarify its stance on the Moroccan Sahara issue, through a “clear commitment”. “The silence, behind which official France places itself, is perceived by Moroccans as an unfriendly act,” said the foundation, under French law, in a joint statement of its French and Moroccan members, issued at the end of its 4th meetings in Guelmim, Tan Tan, Es Smara and Laâyoune, Morocco. “Moroccans expect from this country, France, which they see as a brother, a clear commitment, black or white and not gray,” said the statement, signed by the president of the foundation, Me Hubert Seillan, a lawyer at the Paris Bar. The foundation said it noted with “concern the acute gap that is emerging in France between the realities of the Southern Provinces and the comments”, warning against “the risks of an increase in this gap, because of the context of energy issues”. The members of this institution, based in Bordeaux, recalled at the same time that the southern provinces are Moroccan since the creation of the state by the first dynasty of Idrissides in the 8th century and that the family and tribal links between the south and the north of the country, between Dakhla and Tetouan or Oujda, for example, bear the most tangible evidence. “Denying this fact without having examined it can only proceed from a fundamentally unfriendly intention”, it noted, adding that questioning this fact requires its examination, “otherwise the unfriendly attitude will appear”.