Morocco-France Relations Deteriorate Amid Visa Debate and Journalist Expulsions

Recently, many Moroccan Internet users have called for Morocco to impose visas on French people wishing to visit the kingdom. This online campaign follows the expulsion by the Moroccan authorities of the deputy editor-in-chief of the world service of the French weekly Marianne, Quentin Müller, and his colleague, the reporter and photojournalist, Thérèse Di Campo, as well as the video message from French President Emmanuel Macron published on X in which he addressed the Moroccans directly and promised his country’s support for Morocco, hit by a powerful earthquake that killed more than 2,900 people, as well as the relentlessness of the French media against Morocco. There is "a real exasperation among the Moroccan populations. And this desire to also impose a visa on the French is perfectly understandable," Abdelhak Najib told Sputnik Afrique, noting that France has refused more than 80% of visa applications from Moroccans in recent years.

"It turns out that Moroccans have spent more than $10 million on files and filing fees to apply for visas. Not only do they receive a refusal in response, but they have to pay for the refusal," he stressed. According to the political scientist, it is unlikely that Morocco will impose visas on French people wishing to visit the kingdom. "I am far from thinking that the Moroccan government really wants to go that far with the French. If it decides to impose a visa on the French, it will do so and will judge according to the interests of the Moroccan government and the country [...]. If this visa story were to come to fruition and become a reality. But a lot of French people will also suffer from it and they will feel what others, Moroccans, Maghrebians, Africans, Arabs have felt about this issue," he predicted.

According to the specialist in Africa and international relations, the tightening of the conditions for obtaining French visas for countries like Morocco, Algeria, but also Tunisia, and other African countries, even Lebanon and Qatar, is perceived as an anti-Arab, anti-Muslim and anti-African policy. "This blindness is not good for France, which is losing momentum in all areas," analyzes the essayist. "France has lost Morocco. France has not been able to recover Algeria. France has not been able to recover Tunisia. France has been booed and ejected from all of Africa, from its former colonies, its French-speaking backyard, what we used to call Françafrique." And he adds: "This policy of Emmanuel Macron today has completed the rupture of the last truly thin ties that still bind France to the Maghreb and the rest of Africa."