Let’s Recapitulate France’s Part in Sahara Question

France proved a stumbling block to Morocco’s efforts to turn the page on colonization, a reminder of the old usurper’s role in the North African country’s bleak era and territorial dismemberment. Bearing this in mind, it is a long shot that France recognizes the Moroccan sovereignty over the Sahara.
According to author and journalist Reda Zaireg, France is the primary cause behind the current Sahara conundrum, as it laid waste and spread its lethal separatist ideas, mainly among Sahrawi tribes. French machinations made the then Sultan disavow Shaykh Mâ al-Aynîn, leader of Rguibat tribe, in the beginning of the 20th century.
The Reguibat is a Sahrawi tribe of mixed Arab and Berber origins. It inhabits the Moroccan Sahara, Algeria and Mauritania.
To jog memory, it was France, not Spain, that was proactive and fully functional in annihilating the Sahrawis’ resistance and disuniting tribes, by unleashing its military force or through scheming, as goes the saying “divide and rule”, added Zaireg.
The administrative rooting of the Reguibat tribe in Algeria and Mauritania gave birth to a Saharawi identity and a political claim, thus reshaping allegiances and accentuating differences.
The succession of events shows that Spain colonized the Sahara in the 80s of the 19th century, while France snatched Mauritania from the Sherifian Empire between 1905-1907. France, or rather its central figure Lyautey, did everything in its power to actualize its dream of establishing French territorial waters from Rabat to Dakar, but all was in vain.
Because its dream failed to materialize, France pushed the National Liberation Army (ALN) northward with its Operation “Ecouvillon”. A Spanish buffer zone between the kingdom and Mauritania was meant to shield the latter from the risks of a shared border with Morocco.
Until the 1970s, while Morocco was striving to regain its territorial integrity from Spain, the Polisario Front happened and changed the face of the enemy as Morocco knows it. Despite all, France remained lethargic and refused to support Morocco’s national cause.
Now, 50y after the Sahara’s decolonization from Spain, France is facing a big dilemma: All influential nations are showing support for Morocco. The USA, Spain, Israel, and even the UN are championing Morocco’s autonomy plan, while France is laying low.