France reiterates position on Moroccanness of Sahara

PARIS - France reiterated Saturday its position towards the Moroccanness of the Sahara following Moroccan Prime Minister Aziz Akhannouch’s appeal to Paris to recognize Morocco's sovereignty over the Sahara.

“Morocco knows our position perfectly, a position reiterated by the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Catherine Colonna, on the occasion of a joint press briefing with her Moroccan counterpart, Nasser Bourita in Rabat on December 16,” Ambassador Francis Pauly, responsible for communication in Arabic at the French Foreign Ministry told France 24.

Pauly stressed France “considers the Moroccan autonomy initiative as a serious and credible basis for reaching a negotiated solution. That is the most important.”

“France wants a “resumption of negotiations between the parties concerned in order to reach a fair and realistic solution,” he said.

Asked whether France planned to recognize the Moroccanness of the Sahara as requested by Aziz Akhannouch, Pauly said that he had just expressed “France's position" on the Western Sahara issue.

French President Emmanuel Macron's trip to Morocco was initially planned for January, but was postponed to February or March.

Last August, Moroccan King Mohammed VI implicitly exerted pressure on France to explicitly recognise the kingdom’s sovereignty over the Sahara.

"In the face of such positive developments, which concern countries on different continents, I want to send a clear message to all: the Sahara issue is the prism through which Morocco looks at the world, and it is the clear and simple criterion by which it measures the sincerity of friendships and the effectiveness of partnerships,” said the monarch in a speech to commemorate the 69th anniversary of the King and People's Revolution.