Algeria has withdrawn its ambassador to France in response to French President Emmanuel Macron’s support for a controversial Moroccan autonomy plan for the disputed territory of Western Sahara.
The action on Tuesday came just hours after Macron announced the decision in a letter to Morocco’s leader, King Mohammed VI. Algeria took similar action against Spain in 2022 when Madrid backed Rabat’s autonomy plan.
Morocco de facto controls around 80% of Western Sahara, a former Spanish colony it annexed in 1975. This has been a source of regional tension and a decades-long conflict between Rabat and the Polisario Front, an Algerian-backed group seeking independence for the Sahrawi people. The separatist group has expressed its support for a self-determination referendum, which was initially proposed by the UN in 1991 as part of a ceasefire agreement but has since stalled.
The North African state has repeatedly ruled out the possibility of a vote that would grant Sahrawis independence and has been promoting an autonomy plan under its sovereignty for the region for nearly two decades.
On Tuesday, Macron, whose government had previously remained neutral on Rabat’s claims, declared that Paris considers Western Sahara as part of Morocco’s present and future territory.
“Our support for the autonomy plan proposed by Morocco in 2007 is clear and constant. For France, it now constitutes the only basis for achieving a just, lasting and negotiated political solution in accordance with the resolutions of the United Nations Security Council,” he stated.
The French decision angered Algeria, which has strained relations with its neighbor Morocco over the “occupation” of Western Sahara.
In a statement, Algeria’s foreign ministry said Macron’s “categorical support for the colonial fact imposed on Western Sahara” was a decision made “without lucidly measuring all the potential repercussions.”
Algiers insists that the French government’s position “flouts international legality... [and] distances itself from all the patient and persevering efforts deployed by the United Nations to complete the decolonization of Western Sahara.”
“Accordingly, the Algerian Government has decided to withdraw its ambassador to the French Republic with immediate effect,” the ministry stated.
France said it had “taken note of Algeria’s decision to recall its ambassador,” French daily Le Monde reported, citing an unnamed diplomatic source.
The Polisario Front has also condemned France’s diplomatic shift, claiming that it would “expose the region to threats and instability.”
“France is no longer qualified to belong to the MINURSO mission [the UN Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara] after its departure from international legitimacy due to its blatant and biased position towards the Moroccan proposal,” the group said on Tuesday.