Christophe Lecourtier, Director General of Investment “Business France,” has been appointed as France’s ambassador to Morocco.

According to French reports, Christophe Lecourtier, former French ambassador in Australia, has emerged as the most prominent candidate to become Paris’ ambassador in Rabat, and he has already been appointed by the French Council of Ministers pending final approval from the Moroccan Ministry of Foreign Affairs. This coincides with President Emmanuel Macron’s upcoming trip to the Kingdom, where he will meet King Mohammed VI.

The appointment is expected to fill an unprecedented diplomatic void left by former ambassador Hélène Le Gal’s departure last October in her new role as head of the Middle East and North Africa Division of the External Action Service at the European Union headquarters in Brussels, without Paris appointing a successor in light of a silent diplomatic crisis with Rabat over the French position on the Sahara issue and the visa crisis.

Christophe Lecourtier, who served as ambassador to Australia from June 2014 to April 2017, is a diplomat as well as a “custodian” of French investments abroad. He has been the director general of Business France since September 14, 2017, the French international investment agency founded in 2012 that promotes the French economy and supports investments by companies from this country, with branches in 124 countries and operations in a variety of fields.

The economic aspect of this appointment is clear, as Business France, from which Lecourtier came, oversees investment and export operations in a variety of popular Moroccan industries, including industry, clean technology, infrastructure, energy, environment, and transport, as well as tourism, health, services, agricultural technology, food industry, services, and textile.

Morocco-France diplomatic relations are not at their best, and after Paris withdrew its ambassador from Rabat after being assigned new duties, King Mohammed VI appointed the Kingdom’s Ambassador to France, Mohamed Benchaaboun, as Director General of the Mohammed VI Investment Fund on October 18, 2022, marking the first time in the history of the two countries’ modern relations that ambassadors are absent from the diplomatic representation of the two countries.

Following an agreement reached between Macron and King Mohammed VI via phone conversation on November 1, 2022, the French President is expected to visit Rabat next January. The Elysee Palace is currently working on arranging this trip, which will last at least two days. According to French media, the Foreign Minister of Paris, Catherine Colonna, will visit the Kingdom in the middle of December to prepare for this.