In an effort to strengthen Moroccan sovereignty over the desert region, French Culture Minister Rachida Dati started her trip to the disputed Western Sahara on Monday. She will meet with officials and open a French cultural center there.
Morocco, which claims the area as its own, is at odds with the Algerian-backed Polisario Front independence movement in the long-frozen conflict, which dates back to 1975. Dati told Moroccan media, “This is a strong symbolic and political moment.”
In July, her country joined the U.S. as the second permanent member of the U.N. Security Council to support Morocco’s stance. French President Emmanuel Macron visited Rabat in October telling parliament that Western Sahara was Moroccan, while his foreign minister promised to expand France’s consular presence to the territory.
Economic deals worth over $10 billion were signed during the presidential visit, following which Morocco mediated the release of four French spies held in Burkina Faso. French support for Rabat over Western Sahara irks Algiers.
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Morocco has also won backing from Western Sahara’s former colonial power Spain, as well as Israel and more than two dozen African and Arab nations. The Polisario in 2020 withdrew from a U.N.-brokered truce but the conflict remains of low intensity.
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