“The French government has ended up giving its forthright and unequivocal support to the colonial rule imposed on Western Sahara,” the Algerian Foreign Affairs Ministry said in a statement, referring to Morocco as colonizer.
“The current government has taken this step, which no other French government before it had thought necessary to take, with great flippancy and carelessness,” Algeria’s statement added.
Until now, France had called the Moroccan plan “a serious and credible basis for discussion” without formally endorsing it.
Macron’s endorsement of the Moroccan plan for Western Sahara was praised not only within his own ranks, but also by lawmakers from other parties, including far-right leader Marine Le Pen. Le Pen nonetheless jabbed Macron by posting on X that the “French government had been slow to recognize Morocco’s ongoing commitment.”
Some voices on the left attacked the French president’s policy switch. Greens leader Marine Tondelier on X accused Macron of “betraying France’s historic position” of not formally endorsing a plan, and of having acted without consulting the leading political faction in France’s currently hazy political landscape.
The United Nations list Western Sahara as a “non-self-governing territory,” a category that includes territories “whose people have not yet attained a full measure of self-government.”
