French President Emmanuel Macron’s letter of congratulations to the Moroccan sovereign Mohammed VI on the 25th anniversary of his rise to the throne unveiled a major policy shift regarding the Western Sahara conflict. Macron announced that France views Morocco’s autonomy proposal not only as a viable solution, but the most viable solution to the conflict. This semantic shift is a significant change of French foreign policy and, coming after a similar shift in Spain’s position, could prompt other European countries to follow suit. More broadly, the move also has implications for regional dynamics and will eventually require a revisiting of the United Nations-led conflict resolution process.
After decades of negotiating, under the aegis of the UN, a range of possible solutions to the territorial dispute — which pits Morocco against the Polisario Front, a liberation movement supported by Algeria — Morocco began pushing its own preferred outcome. Rabat’s plan for autonomy under Moroccan sovereignty surfaced in 2007, and absent other viable avenues to ensure self-determination, the autonomy plan had garnered support but not flat-out endorsement from the United States and Europe. Morocco has endeavored to make the plan the only basis for negotiation of a resolution, whereas the UN (and various personal envoys) has attempted to broaden the context and ensure that a negotiation would entertain all possible outcomes. Since the early 2000s, Morocco has rejected potential negotiations that would include independence (through a referendum for self-determination), while the Polisario, on the basis of the internationally recognized right to self-determination, insists that negotiations include a possible path to a referendum offering three options: autonomy, independence, and total integration. However, the Moroccan leadership has for years actively worked to reduce the likelihood of this outcome by cementing its de facto control of most of the territory through demographics, investment, and economic development, thus creating a reality nearly impossible to undo. Successive negotiators have failed to move Rabat on this issue, an unsurprising outcome considering the support for Morocco’s position from the US and France in the UN Security Council.
Competing interests of international actors
The US, France, and Spain (the actors with the most direct involvement in the conflict) have had to manage several competing interests and principles on this issue, in an early example of the way international law and international conflict resolution processes have hampered foreign policy and national priorities. Reluctant to pressure a stalwart partner into accepting a solution that could weaken it, they have shielded Morocco from being forced to accept a compromise. Spain, the former colonial power and administrator of the Western Sahara, has also had to manage domestic perceptions on this issue. Both Spain and France have been required to balance their partnership with Morocco against their partnership with Algeria, the Polisario’s key backer and an important regional player and exporter of energy to European markets, particularly given the impact the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine has had on the supply of gas to Europe.
As a result, these partners have maintained the spurious position of treating autonomy as one of several viable bases for negotiation, while simultaneously protecting Morocco from any substantial pressure at the negotiating table. This tactic might have been intended to appease the Polisario and Algeria, but it became a source of frustration and a factor that, in the latter’s view, delegitimizes the international negotiation process, contributing to the Polisario’s November 2020 withdrawal from the UN-brokered cease-fire agreement of 1991. The group has come under pressure from disillusioned refugees in camps in Tinduf to take dramatic action against Morocco and the rising tide of diplomatic support for the kingdom’s position. Morocco has been disappointed with its partners’ implicit but not public or official backing for the resolution it prefers, but has succeeded in obtaining support for its autonomy plan, and even outright recognition from several African and Arab partners of its sovereignty claims. A slew of recognitions came in 2020, with the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and Jordan being the most notable.
The US changes course, leading to increased pressure on European partners
With the paradigm shift that the Trump administration brought to this conflict in December 2020 by accepting Moroccan sovereignty over the territory, the UN’s role and the debate over various resolution scenarios were minimized. Subsequently, the Biden administration found itself navigating the difficult course of seeking to simultaneously reassert the importance of international law and the UN process in the negotiation of a durable solution while upholding the new US foreign policy, the reversal of which would be controversial and could precipitate a crisis in US-Moroccan relations. The Biden administration came under significant pressure from supporters of the Polisario and those keen to see the international process proceed unhampered to undo the change. But while the recognition stood, the administration’s rhetoric went back to the pre-Trump administration position of maintaining autonomy as an option. While privately disappointed with the backpedaling, Morocco took the victory. Furthermore, the US position created a new expectation of a domino effect.
Rabat has been encouraging, cajoling, and pressuring international partners to, if not exactly follow in Washington’s footsteps, at the very least show stronger support for its preferred outcome. Pressure began to build with Morocco’s closest European partners, Spain and France, the latter of which held out for several years. While managing Morocco’s increasing demands for more full-throated support, France claimed it was better able to assist the kingdom by maintaining its neutrality on the autonomy plan. Morocco was undeterred, however, and with an eye to bringing international (including French) foreign direct investment to the area under its control, sought greater diplomatic support from all its partners. Spain, being the closest geographically and involved in significant cooperation with Rabat on migration and security, rewarded Morocco with a policy change in 2022 — a move that solicited a strong reaction from Algiers in an attempt to circumvent a broader change in EU foreign policy.
Potential outcomes and regional effects of France’s policy shift
France’s shift occurred after several years of bilateral tensions involving issues that predated Macron’s administration — ranging from diplomatic friction to spying allegations to France’s overtures to Algeria — and may have been viewed by Macron as a necessary step to instigate a makeover of the relationship. While this bodes well for improved relations with Rabat, France is now facing the specter of additional pressure and tension in an already complicated relationship with Algiers. Algeria responded to Macron’s letter by withdrawing its ambassador from Paris, and France has Spain’s experience to look to for a precedent. In June 2022, Algeria cut ties with Spain and suspended trade in all sectors but energy following Madrid’s decision to support the autonomy plan, and the relationship has only just begun to recover. The Algerian polity has been principled in its support for the Polisario, reflecting fears of Morocco’s perceived expansionist ambitions and Algeria’s historical commitment to decolonialization and revolutionary internationalism. Yet Algeria’s efforts to curb Morocco’s progress on this are reactive. The country views Morocco as a national security threat in a nebulous, broad sense, and therefore lacks a clear strategic direction. The Algerian leadership’s approach is to spoil Morocco’s progress and slow its momentum, rather than preempt and set the direction. In this game, Morocco has consistently been a step ahead, muscling its way into the outcome it wants through power politics and sidestepping the international system, while Algeria cries foul in the arena of international law.
However, as Morocco pursues these advantages on the conflict, its leadership does not seem to heed the range of collateral consequences of its actions. France’s move may, as previous recognitions have done, empower Algerian hardliners, potentially increasing bilateral tensions. The latest diplomatic break between the two countries, in August 2021, came on the heels of the US recognition and Morocco’s growing ties to Israel. The US’s policy shift had previously complicated the potential for a cease-fire between the Polisario and Morocco. And with Morocco ascendent on this issue, there is no impetus for the country to compromise. The difficult reality is that with each passing recognition, the onus falls on the Polisario and Algeria to settle this, and they need to do it fast, before any further losses of leverage. Each recognition strips the Polisario of what miniscule chances existed of resolving the issue under the current UN framework.
Returning to active conflict has not brought the outcomes the Polisario has sought — it didn’t draw more international attention to the conflict, it didn't generate condemnation of Morocco, and it didn’t result in any material losses that could force Morocco to offer compromises. Further, any escalation by the Polisario would be unwise as the international community is more likely to rally around Morocco swiftly to stem any potential destabilization of the region. The US, Spain, and France, having altered the dynamics of the conflict through their policy shift, bear responsibility to bring all parties to the negotiating table to prevent further escalation and to ease the deepening political tensions with Algeria.
Intissar Fakir is a Senior Fellow and Director of MEI’s North Africa and Sahel program.
Photo by FADEL SENNA/AFP via Getty Images
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