Morocco's strategy on the Western Sahara has paid off

For Morocco's King Mohammed VI, this summer could go down in history. For five decades, the Western Sahara, a territory to the south of the country, has been at the center of a conflict which might now end.  

The phosphate-rich region with direct access to the Atlantic Ocean is home to the around 160,000 local Sahrawi people who have been seeking autonomy ever since Spain withdrew from the area in 1975.

The Sahrawis are represented by the Polisario Front, which is backed by neighboring Algeria. But Rabat claims the territory belongs to Morocco.

As a consequence of this on-going dispute, Morocco and Algeria have clashed repeatedly, and have cut ties in 2020, even though Algeria does not seek control of the Western Sahara itself. 

Over the past years, Morocco has gained more and more support for its claim on the region and this summer, France changed its diplomatic stance, too. 

On the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the coronation of King Mohammed VI, the 61-year-old monarch received a congratulatory letter by French President Emmanuel Macron in which he said that from now on, France will be supporting Morocco's plan for the Western Sahara.

This plan, which was initially proposed by Rabat in 2007, includes creating autonomous political institutions in the region as well as pushing economic development including a port at the Atlantic Ocean. However, Morocco will be holding control over foreign affairs, defence and currency.

"France's recognition is an extremely symbolic move that might seal the fate of the Western Sahara conflict," Sarah Zaaimi, a researcher and the deputy director for communications at the Washington-based think tank Atlantic Council, told DW.

Thomas M. Hill, director of North Africa Programs at the Washington-based think tank United States Institute of Peace concludedin an op-ed this month that the Western Sahara conflict "is over" and that the indigenous Sahrawi independence movement is left with no choice but to eventually settle for some form of autonomy within Morocco.

France acts with an eye on migration

France is only the latest state to recognize the Western Sahara region as Moroccan territory. Spain did so in 2022, as did the United States as part of a "quid pro quo" for Rabat's normalization of diplomatic ties with Israel in 2020. 

The Gulf countries and various African and Latin American countries regard the Western Sahara as Moroccan, too.

About the same number of countries support the Polisario Front and the quest for independence by the Sahrawis. However, support for this side has been stalling.

The UN neither recognizes the sovereignty claims of Morocco nor those of the Polisario Front. The international body endorses a UN-led referendum for the local Sahrawis instead.

This is also the position of the European Union, despite first Spain's and now France's changed stances.

Alice Gower, director of geopolitics and security at the London-based consulting firm Azure Strategy, highlights that France's diplomatic turnaround after years of keeping neutral on the topic is less driven by the desire to end the actual dispute over the Western Sahara.

"France's recognition has little practical effect on the ground," she told DW.

"Macron's move has undoubtedly been in part motivated by transactional politics as migration is a fiercely contested issue in France," she said. The Western Sahara has become one of the most frequented departure points for aspiring migrants and France hopes that Mohammed VI will help curb migration to Europe.

In addition, France also has a high level of interest in avoiding a power vacuum in the increasingly volatile region that includes unstable and warring countries like Libya and Sudan.

"Macron desires to prop up the Moroccan monarchy, which has been suffering a crisis of legitimacy in recent years amid rising Russian and Iranian influence in neighboring Algeria and broader security concerns across the Sahel," Gower said.

Algeria's political pressure

However, France's decision also has the potential to "throw Algeria more in the arms of the Russian Iranian axis, and push Algeria into a counter move, particularly in light of its upcoming presidential elections in early September," Atlantic Council's Zaaimi told DW.

Zine Labidine Ghebouli, a political analyst on Algeria and postgraduate scholar at the University of Glasgow, is therefore worried that "the region may be heading towards the moment when the Polisario Front decides that it is more appropriate and more useful to intensify its military campaign rather than waiting for a diplomatic solution that may not come."

So far, however, the Sahrawi news agency only reported that the "Polisario Front has asserted that resolving the situation in occupied Western Sahara necessitates the 'strict and firm implementation' of international legitimacy resolutions affirming the Sahrawi people's right to self-determination."

An autonomous region is also envisioned by the around 173,600 Sahrawi refugees who have been living in Algerian refugee camps for the past 50 years. According to recent numbers by the UN, they have been bearing the world's second longest-standing refugee situation.

Meanwhile, Algeria has stepped up its diplomatic pressure. Algier recalled its ambassador to Paris and started to refuse Algerian nationals deported from France.

For Ghebuli, there is no doubt that this is in reaction to France's Morocco support.

"The Western Sahara has become an extension of Algeria's national security domain," he told DW.

Edited by: Carla Bleiker