Can French FM’s Visit To Morocco Dissipate Tension?

French Foreign minister Catherine Colonna is paying a visit to Morocco on Dec. 15-16 to tackle the thorny visa issue and prepare for the visit by president Emmanuel Macron.
Colonna is expected to meet with her peer Nasser Bourita and give a press conference with the same issue on top of its agenda.
Morocco’s official position was that the French decision is sovereign. However, what is really at stake is France’s ambiguous, even hypocrite, position over the Sahara issue.
Morocco, which boasts unique stability, multiple accomplishments and new allies, wants to be dealt with on equal terms. This means ending the French guardianship, reviewing old relations and building new modern, healthy, win-win ties.
Paris and its media outlets seem to be delusional. Since September 2021, Morocco was unequivocal. The Moroccan foreign minister had declared at a press conference that this purely French decision is unjustified. Morocco has always managed the immigration question and the inflow of immigrants in a balanced, responsible way.
Bourita remarked that this one-sided decision does not reflect the truth of the consular cooperation between the two countries in fighting illegal immigration.
France had decided to halve visas granted to Moroccans under the pretext that the kingdom is reluctant to bring back its Moroccan illegal immigrants established in the European country.
The visa blackmail put the Moroccan-French partnership in jeopardy and the Kingdom of Morocco is expecting apologies to mend bilateral ties.
A year later, the stubborn French side is discovering that all its European neighbors cannot bypass and ignore the Moroccan role. For its part, Morocco will not accept injunctions or useless concessions. It will defend its rights for equality-based, balanced, realistic and improvisation-free bilateral relations.
Catherine Colonna is striving to find solutions that are in line with her country’s interests. Meanwhile, Moroccans are opting for other hot destinations as Spain, Italy and Turkey, and are choosing the English language over the French one.
France failed in its arm-twisting policy using visas, and is yet to make a clear stance over the Moroccan Sahara issue.