The question of rule over Western Sahara has been a volatile issue in North African politics for decades. A Foreign Policy magazine headline not long ago called it “decolonization’s last stand.” France’s recent announcement that it supports Moroccan claims over the Western Sahara, a territory that has long fought for self-rule, may be a turning point. French President Emmanuel Macron’s statement expressing support for Western Sahara to be ruled “within the framework of Moroccan sovereignty” and with limited autonomy, which Morocco has long proposed, aims to accelerate a resolution to what has otherwise been a stalemate. Following a similar move by the United States four years ago, as well as by Spain and 35 others since then, it may offer promise for stabilization by tipping the weight of international support for Morocco. But it also comes with risks. The French decision has provoked unsurprising pushback from Algeria, inflaming tensions with potential ripple effects for the maintenance of international law and regional security.
A Troubled History
A former Spanish colony annexed by Morocco in 1975 and briefly ruled by Mauritania, the 103,000 square-mile Western Sahara on Africa’s northwest coast, to Morocco’s south, has been embroiled in decades of conflict. The Sahrawi people and their movement, the Polisario Front, have sought self-rule based on a shared ethnic and national identity of mixed Berber and Arab descent, seeking their independence first from the Spanish and today from Morocco. The Polisario Front’s claim to statehood as the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR) gained traction over time, although it never received full United Nations recognition. Despite a 1991 U.N.-backed ceasefire and the establishment of an international peacekeeping operation, the territory has been the site of continued military skirmishes and stalemates for decades.
Despite its small population of about 636,000 people, Western Sahara has been a critical chess piece shaping politics well beyond the borders of the Maghreb. In 2020, the Trump administration recognized Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara in exchange for Morocco’s normalization of relations with Israel as part of the Abraham Accords. This was a major win for the U.S. effort at the time for Arab States, also including Bahrain, Sudan, and the United Arab Emirates, to recognize Israel, though the agreement has been strained in the face of the conflict in Gaza.
The 2020 deal wasn’t the first time Western Sahara had played a central role in geopolitics. For 33 years, Morocco was the only African State that was not a member of the African Union (AU). The country in 1984 withdrew from the precursor Organization of African Unity over the issue. It remained outside of the AU for decades, undermining the organization’s power but also denying Morocco influence within it. Morocco only reversed its decision in 2017, rejoining in a move that some analysts claimed was aimed at sidelining the Polisario Front by expanding Moroccan influence over African politics.
At the same time, France’s role as a former colonial power in North Africa has evolved. The country’s longstanding but fragile relations with Algeria and Morocco – two countries that are rivals in North Africa but share a French colonial past – have placed France in an awkward position. With economic and political ties to both countries and a shared history, France today is trying to balance the two. Algeria has long supported Western Sahara’s claims to independence, driven in part by Algeria’s competition with Morocco for regional dominance. Algerians also frame empathies toward the Sahrawi movement with reference to the horrors of Algeria’s own colonial past under France’s rule.
France’s ability to balance its relations with Morocco and Algeria has proved an ongoing challenge. In recent years, Paris had appeared to be growing closer to Algiers. In a major symbolic move in January 2023, Algerian military leaders visited French defense officials for meetings for the first time since Algeria’s independence. France had long been interested in Algeria’s role as a “missing link” for counterterrorism in the Sahel, and in 2022, Macron said he wanted to strengthen relations with Algeria as a key security partner in the Sahel. Such efforts have, in turn, placed some strain on the French government’s ties with Morocco. As the International Crisis Group’s Riccardo Fabiani noted a year ago, Macron at that time had recently postponed a visit to Morocco because of a rift over his efforts to court Algiers.
A Break With the Past
The decision by France to come out decisively in favor of Morocco now marks a departure from its longstanding position of neutrality. The decision is shaped significantly by economics, as Morocco is a stronger trading partner than Algeria, and by politics, as France has been emboldened by rising international support for Morocco’s position via the United States and Spain. France had been working to strengthen its ties with Morocco, and is also interested in potential economic gains — for example, from Morocco’s Atlantic Initiative that connects Sahel countries to the Atlantic through a harbor in Dakhla, Western Sahara.
In the face of almost a half century of conflict, some analysts express optimism that France’s decision will help bring resolution to the issue. Thomas Hill, a former State Department official now at the U.S. Institute of Peace, for example, writes that “[i]international momentum is entirely on Morocco’s side,” making the conflict likely to end in a “negotiated settlement” that is set to “improve regional stability.” But others are more pessimistic, suggesting that U.N. Security Council-backed decisions would be required to secure stability, and that likely vetoes from China and Russia will leave the issue in continued stalemate.
A negotiated agreement for some sort of autonomous governance as part of Morocco may be the best path forward for the Sahrawis, given the movement’s political realities – in addition to the global political winds blowing against it, an estimated 173,000 Sahrawis are languishing in refugee camps in Algeria amid an intractable conflict.
Risks for Security and Maintenance of International Law
Still, there is a risk that any hope for a resolution with this approach could come at wider — and far more dangerous — costs. The announcement comes as France has been forced to drastically pare its presence in Africa’s neighboring Sahel region amid coups that have installed military juntas that, in turn, are rescinding their countries’ counterterrorism cooperation with France and instead linking arms with Russia. In 2023, France announced it was pulling its nearly 1,500 troops from its former colony Niger, expelled in the wake of that country’s coup. And that was the third time in less than 18 months that French troops have exited a country in the Sahel region, starting with Mali and then Burkina Faso. And U.S. troops are slated to leave Niger by next month, also having been ousted by a new military junta.
Algeria likewise has been active in the Sahel in the past – serving as a broker for the “Algiers Process” on Mali in 2015, for instance, and offering a democratic transition plan for Niger in 2023 — but also has seen its influence diminish amid the coups. It has since held an ambiguous position following Niger’s coup and instability last year that expelled French troops. But as France’s influence there has waned, Algerian leaders are reportedly working to mend relationships with Niger and other Sahel countries.
Amid that reshuffling, the Western Sahara issue has further reshaped Algeria’s security partnerships. It severed diplomatic relations with Morocco over the issue in 2021. It also retaliated against Spain’s 2022 support for Morocco over Western Sahara, recalling its ambassador to Spain and disrupting Spanish gas exports.
Now, Algeria has recalled its ambassador to France this summer over Macron’s overture toward Morocco, and has refused to take back its citizens deported from France. Currently a rotating member on the U.N. Security Council, Algeria reportedly already is increasing its ties with Russia, a major arms provider for Algiers, as well as with Iran and China. So, some observers suggest that if France’s decision provokes Algeria further, it could become a locus of even greater geopolitical competition for proxy influence on the continent.
The French decision also risks further eroding the perceptions among African countries of U.S. and European support for international law. Western Sahara’s status under international law has remained ambiguous over the years, with support from the International Court of Justice and the United Nations for the Sahrawis’ right to self-determination stemming from a 1975 ICJ advisory opinion, which helped SADR gain recognition by the African Union. Among African governments supporting SADR, including Algeria, Morocco’s occupation of Western Sahara has been considered a violation of international law by some scholars. With U.S. support for Morocco’s claims to rule in the territory wrapped in the agenda for normalization with Israel, Western Sahara remains a hot-button issue symbolizing what some in the region see as Western double standards and violations of postcolonial claims to sovereignty.
A Difficult Road Ahead in North Africa
The United States, along with France and Spain, will soon need to face this volatile combination of issues and perceptions head-on. The Biden administration has so far maintained a quiet — and generally ambivalent — stance, although it never reversed the Trump administration’s position and isn’t likely to as long as it’s hitched to the Abraham Accords. As France’s position might encourage action by Morocco on Western Sahara, the next U.S. administration will likely face continued calls to either affirm U.S. policy in favor of Morocco and towards a negotiated settlement or change U.S. policy in some way.
Although support for Western Sahara’s independence has waned, the issue continues to divide Africa. Today, some 22 African countries still recognize Sahrawi claims to independence. As the thrust of U.S. and European support turns against SADR and towards Morocco, work will be needed to ensure that efforts to broker peace in Western Sahara are as inclusive as possible, while also addressing the needs of displaced Sahrawis.
U.S. policymakers should consider the role the United States can play in ensuring that any effort to negotiate peace brings a diversity of representatives to enable more lasting peace, building for example on the important work of Sahrawi women to expand representation in future negotiations following U.N.-mediated talks in 2018 and 2019 that sputtered. Building on a 2023 U.N. Security Council resolution that extended the mandate of international peacekeepers in the area and called for peace talks to resume, the United States and Europe can help spotlight the ongoing needs of the affected refugee populations, including those living in the Tindouf camps in Algeria.
Meanwhile, those concerned with African security should take note of France’s evolving position, given the risks of further agitating Algeria, and the potential ripple effects beyond the Maghreb for wider African security.