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Foreign Minister Nasser Bourita is planning a visit to Paris, as revealed by Africa Intelligence on Monday, July 28. The date of the meeting has yet to be confirmed, but Bourita is expected to hold discussions with his French counterpart, Jean-Noël Barrot, with a focus on the «Moroccan autonomy plan for Western Sahara, supported by Emmanuel Macron», the French-language newspaper reported.
According to the same source, «The Élysée wants Morocco to present a concrete timeline for implementing the 35 measures outlined in the autonomy proposal», initially submitted to the UN Security Council in 2007.
It’s worth recalling that the UN Secretary-General’s personal envoy for Western Sahara, Staffan de Mistura, previously asked Morocco to provide greater detail on its proposal. «Self-government must be ‘serious.’ This aligns with my conviction and my request that the Moroccan autonomy initiative be explained in more detail, and that the powers delegated to a genuinely autonomous entity in Western Sahara be clarified», he stated during a closed-door meeting of the Security Council on April 14.
A few months earlier, speaking from the UN podium, de Mistura noted: «The Moroccan three-page plan appears to be gaining bilateral traction, I believe this also creates an expectation, maybe even a right, to understand better what this plan entails. A right for the people concerned to understand better what is being proposed. A right for this Council and the United Nations Secretary-General and myself to assess the details of the possible way forward».
A Bilateral Milestone on the Horizon
Beyond the Western Sahara issue, Bourita’s visit to Paris could also serve as a key step toward a major event on the French-Moroccan bilateral agenda. On November 6, Morocco and France will commemorate the 70th anniversary of the Celle-Saint-Cloud Declaration. President Emmanuel Macron has proposed marking the occasion by signing a new partnership agreement with King Mohammed VI, celebrating Morocco’s independence and the end of the French protectorate.
«To project our bilateral relationship into the future and realize this ambition and these projects, I have proposed to His Majesty King Mohammed VI that France and Morocco be linked by a new strategic framework, to be signed 70 years after the Celle-Saint-Cloud agreement, on November 6, 1955, during a state visit to France, which His Majesty has accepted», Macron announced in a speech before the Moroccan Parliament on October 30, 2024.
The aim of this new French-Moroccan framework, he explained, is «to enable both countries to better address all the challenges they face, by mobilizing all relevant sectors of bilateral, regional, and international cooperation. The Kingdom of Morocco would thus become the first country outside the European Union with which we would engage at this level of intensity».
To prepare for this strategic agreement, the king and the president agreed to establish a joint monitoring committee tasked with drafting proposals for the future of French-Moroccan relations.
