The Algerian Ministry of Foreign Affairs denounced on Tuesday a “step that no other French government before it had thought it necessary to take”.
The Algerian government announced on Tuesday, July 30, the “withdrawal with immediate effect” of its ambassador to France, after the announcement of increased French support for the Moroccan autonomy plan for the disputed territory of Western Sahara.
“The Algerian diplomatic representation in France is now the responsibility of a chargé d’affaires,” added the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in a press release published by the official APS agency, denouncing a “step that no other French government before it had believed it had to take.
France responded on Tuesday that it had “taken note of Algeria’s decision to recall its ambassador. ” “We do not have to comment on this sovereign decision,” a diplomatic source stressed. “For our part, we remain determined to continue deepening our bilateral relationship with Algeria,” the source added.
Western Sahara, a former Spanish colony, the subject of a conflict that has been going on for almost fifty years, is de facto controlled for the most part by Morocco, which is proposing an autonomy plan under its sovereignty. But it is claimed by the Sahrawi separatists of the Polisario Front, who are demanding a referendum on self-determination, planned during a ceasefire in 1991, but never organized.
A controversial letter
The UN considers this territory, with its rich fish waters and significant phosphate reserves, as a “non-autonomous territory”. By recognizing the Moroccan autonomy plan as the “sole basis for settlement” of the Western Sahara conflict, France “flouts international legality, takes up the cause of the denial of the right of the Sahrawi people to self-determination and distances itself from all the patient and persevering efforts deployed by the United Nations” to “complete the decolonization of Western Sahara”, Algiers added.
“The French government has ended up giving its frank and categorical support to the colonial fact imposed on Western Sahara,” Algeria further denounced, considering that France took its decision “with great levity and great nonchalance, without lucidly measuring all the potential repercussions. “
In a letter addressed to King Mohammed VI, published Tuesday by Rabat, French President Emmanuel Macron affirms that the Moroccan plan “now constitutes the only basis for reaching a just, lasting and negotiated political solution per the resolutions of the United Nations Security Council. “
Without expressly recognizing the “Moroccanness” of Western Sahara, Mr. Macron said in this letter that he considered “the present and future of Western Sahara are part of Moroccan sovereignty”.
