Morocco Secures Atlantic Access Deal with Sahel Nations, Outpacing France

"The country that just won the jackpot is Morocco. Since Morocco has just signed an economic cooperation agreement between the three countries concerned, Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso (in addition to Chad and Mauritania, ed.) to extend economic ties and make Morocco the point that will allow these three countries to have access to the Atlantic Ocean from the South," Alain Juillet said on his YouTube channel Open Box Tv.

And he continued: "We are losing our footing, but worse still. It is a country that was an ally of France and is now at odds with France... How can our French diplomacy come to commit such errors? It seems incredible." The former director general of the Directorate General of External Security (DGSE) says he shares the view of former French diplomat Laurent Bigot, who said that "Africa is no longer a major objective of French policy."

For Juillet, France has left the "free field" on the international scene. "The Americans have exploited it with total cynicism, at the same time as we were being pushed out the door. And then the Moroccans arrived, they just won the jackpot. This means that it will be hard to come back," he asserts.