President Emmanuel Macron’s recent official visit to Algeria did not really generate a buzz in Morocco.
The nation’s press provided a ‘bare minimum’ coverage, with a just a handful of articles or factual reports published in respect of the visit.
But there was no in-depth analysis whatsoever.
This is probably because our upbringing and our respect for professional ethics prevent us from interfering in our neighbours’ internal affairs.
However, this brief but insightful visit warrants a few remarks, which perhaps are not to the taste of ‘our brothers in the East’.
First, it is to be noted that by not commenting on President Bouteflika’s state of health via social media, President Macron and members of his entourage displayed a sense of tact, unlike Manuel Valls, whose insensitivity had hurt Algeria profoundly.
With Emmanuel Macron, it is clear that, from now on, values and principles will underpin France’s approach, something to be highly appreciated everyone… except a sizeable section of the French press which is increasingly bedevilled by ‘pipolisation’, a French term that is more appropriate than the English ‘peoplisation’, a pun on the fact that today’s sensationalised news is full of untruths.
Let’s close the chapter…
The second comment inspired by the French President’s Algerian visit is that there is a noticeably huge chasm between the different approaches adopted by France and Algeria respectively with regard to their relationship.
The political class of El Djezaïr and the Algerian press are still wallowing in pathos, emotions and resentment. They remain entrenched in the past as far as their relationship with the former colonial power is concerned.
Algeria, which has built a nice little business out of its ‘one million martyrs’, continues to believe that bilateral relations with France are first and foremost governed by History, the war of independence and, in particular, by remorse (on the French side, of course).
This approach is characterised by ‘rear-view mirror syndrome’. However, it is quite obvious from President Macron’s visit that the President, born 25 years after the Evian Accords, has no inhibitions whatsoever about this episode of history which is not only burdensome but, objectively, is proving to be an obstacle to developing positive and healthy relations between Paris and Algiers.
Emmanuel Macron is looking to build a future based on the present, between two peoples, States and countries whose common past is best left to historians and sociologists to research rather than to politicians who are likely to exploit it for their own ends.
This is why during his Algerian visit, the French President, unlike his predecessors, adopted an attitude that was as frank as it was uninhibited by the legacy of the past, refusing to ‘atone for past sins’ as demanded each time by the Algerian press.
Moroccan Sahara, a stance that is ne varietur
A final comment must be made regarding Emmanuel Macron’s diplomatic visit to Algeria, which is of direct concern and interest to Morocco and Moroccans.
The Algerian press did not fail to question France’s Head of State about Paris’ stance on the Moroccan Sahara issue.
It is well known that Algeria considers France to be a “major obstacle” regarding this issue, rebuking the latter for its support of the Moroccan cause at the UN and, in particular, on the Security Council.
Algiers, its hack writers as well as the Polisario separatists condemn France’s “unilateral approach”. At the end of Mr Macron’s visit, a whole barrage of criticism and attacks were levelled against France’s stance, which the French President had reiterated with great conviction and transparency, much to the annoyance of the supporters of secession.
France’s stand is entirely consistent with the Security Council’s resolutions on this issue (cf. the resolution dated 30th April 2017) and the initial introductory report of its General Secretary, Mr Guterres, considering that a solution can only be found with Algeria’s direct involvement.
And President Macron did not hesitate to say this to the Al Watan journalists.
This had the effect of annoying the Algerian leaders and the Polisario, who have been striving for decades to make this a strictly Morocco-Polisarian issue, while the reality is very different.
Like Spain, France, with its well-known colonial past in this part of North Africa, is well aware of the origins of the problem, the real stakeholders and the causes of the historical injustice suffered by the Kingdom of Morocco, its national unity and its territorial integrity.
Emmanuel Macron did not beat around the bush in telling the truth, urging Algeria to cooperate more closely with Morocco so as to find a lasting solution to this issue.
The writing is on the wall for the Polisario, the ghostly RASD, the Tindouf mercenaries, as well as the outdated old guard which has been governing Algeria since 1962, with its Bismarkian dreams of a Greater Prussia!
The Algerian nomenklatura has generated and perpetuated this artificial conflict for more than forty years. President Macron, who was born two years after the Green March, was able to ‘tell it as it is’ to the Algerian officials.
A stance that is responsible, positive and transparent and which proves to all parties that the separatists’ designs will not be accepted in Paris, Brussels or New York.
This should be of serious concern to the Generals’ Algeria and to those who serve it, especially given that the UN now has a Secretary General with a better grasp of the grassroots issues affecting North Africa than a Korean citizen, and someone who has appointed a former President of the reunified German Republic as his personal representative to the Sahara.
Emmanuel Macron did not of course utter the famous words pronounced by General de Gaulle on 4th June 1958 to a crowd which had gathered on the Place du Forum in Algiers, “I have understood you”. The manner in which he replied to the Algerian press revealed, however, that he has indeed understood the real nature of the Saharan issue.
We are therefore able to say that France is today governed by a President who ‘walks the talk’.
What joy!
Fahd YATA
Original article : https://lnt.ma/emmanuel-macron-lalgerie-complexe-remord/
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