Moroccan King Declines Macron Meeting Amid Strained Franco-Moroccan Relations

France was counting on a one-on-one dinner between King Mohammed VI and Emmanuel Macron to hope to warm up its relations with Morocco. But the sovereign could not respond to the Élysée’s invitation. He cut short his Parisian stay to return to Morocco as soon as possible, which had just been hit by a powerful and devastating earthquake that killed nearly 3,000 people, in order to manage the situation.

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This postponed meeting will not be rescheduled anytime soon. Relations between Rabat and Paris, which were no longer at their best, have cooled significantly due to Emmanuel Macron’s recent antics and his Foreign Minister, Catherine Colonna. France offered its aid to Morocco, but the latter only accepted the aid of the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Spain and the United Kingdom. They sent search and rescue teams to the kingdom. Paris seems unable to digest the refusal of its aid, and some French media have started criticizing the kingdom.

"This clumsily heavy-handed diplomatic-media harassment ploy," we are told in Rabat, "does not help matters," reports Maghreb-Intelligence. "France, unlike many other friendly countries, wanted to take advantage of the media momentum, regardless of the strictly humanitarian approach," explains a former French diplomat who was posted in Rabat for many years. Another fact that aggravates the crisis: French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna announced, from Cairo, an upcoming visit by Emmanuel Macron to Morocco.

In a statement to MAP, a Moroccan government source stated that this visit by the French president "is not on the agenda and is not scheduled." Describing this visit as a "unilateral initiative," the Moroccan official added that this announcement was made without prior consultation, concerning an "important bilateral deadline".