France is confused as to when the King will receive Macron.
France is confused about when the king will receive Macron. Its diplomacy says the visit is in April and Moroccan sources deny the existence of any agreement.
It seems that French President Emmanuel Macron’s visit to Morocco will not be any time soon, as there is no official Moroccan data confirming the existence of an agreement between the royal palace and the Élysée on a date for the next meeting between King Mohammed VI and President Emmanuel Macron, despite the French promotion of the date of 20 April 2023, which remains a mere supposition in the light of Rabat’s growing anger towards Paris.
The French website “Maroc intelligence” mentioned Moroccan diplomatic sources denying having set any date for Macron’s visit to Rabat, although French diplomacy has leaked data that Macron will visit the kingdom on 20 April, Moroccan sources said that “nothing has been agreed on this, and there are no plans for a possible Macron visit”.
Because of the economic importance of this visit, Moroccan actors are supposed to be aware of its date, which does not seem to be present in the mind of the General Confederation of Moroccan Entrepreneurs, since a source close to it told the French website that “this issue cannot be decided for the moment, and there is nothing concrete in our hands”, knowing that French authorities have been talking for months about the preparation of this visit.
The fact that no deadline has been set for Macron’s visit to Morocco gives strong indications of the deterioration of relations between the two countries, given that the French Foreign Ministry, through its spokesperson Anne-Claire Legendre, had confirmed that Minister Catherine Colonna had travelled to Rabat in mid-December to meet her counterpart Nasser Bourita, and that she is in charge of this file.
In statements quoted by the French news agency AFP, the French official said that Colonna and Bourita will discuss “the thorny issue of visas, the preparation of President Emmanuel Macron’s visit to Morocco”, but after this visit, the minister only spoke of the return to normal consular activity between the two countries, and of Paris’ support for the autonomy proposal in the Sahara before the UN.
Macron had said in an interview with a member of the Moroccan community in France, documented by a video, that he would visit Morocco in October 2022, and in November of the same year, the Paris-based website “Africa Intelligence” said that the French president held a 30-minute phone call with the Moroccan monarch, during which he asked to visit Morocco, and this proposal was welcomed by the king.
But in December 2022, the same website stated that the visit, which was scheduled for January 2023, was postponed to February, and now the French media is circulating the news of its rescheduling to April, knowing that both countries are in an unprecedented state of crisis due to a number of issues, the latest of which is the European Parliament’s vote.