welve French ministers, led by Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu, were received in Rabat on 15 and 16 July for the fifteenth Franco-Moroccan High-Level Meeting, co-chaired with head of government Aziz Akhannouch. Welcomed at Rabat-Sale airport with military honors, the delegation, which included Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot and Interior Minister Laurent Nunez, was handed a twofold mandate by the two heads of state: to carry out without fail the commitments made in 2024 and to open new projects, on the eve of a state visit by King Mohammed VI to France. At the heart of these two days lay the promise of a friendship treaty “of exceptional scope,” meant to surpass the partnership of exception sealed during Emmanuel Macron’s state visit.
Ever since Paris recognized, in October 2024, Moroccan sovereignty over the Sahara, this rapprochement has kept “changing scale,” and now intends to serve the two countries’ shared ambitions toward the European Union and Africa. The meeting unfolded even as a media campaign revived old allegations tied to the Pegasus spyware, which Rabat has always denied and which no public evidence links to this calendar; the diplomatic momentum, for its part, did not waver. History may remember these two days in Rabat as the moment when the two shores, beyond the trials of intent, chose to carve their friendship into the marble of a treaty.
Photo: P. Hughes, CC BY 4.0.
French Government - Sébastien Lecornu au Maroc pour la 15e Réunion de haut niveau franco-marocaine
