King Mohammed VI hosted on Tuesday at the Royal Palace in Rabat a dinner banquet in honor of France’s President Emmanuel Macron and his spouse Ms. Brigitte Macron. The Monarch was accompanied by Crown Prince Moulay El Hassan, his brother Prince Moulay Rachid, his daughter Princess Lalla Khadija, and his sisters Princesses Lalla Meryem, Lalla Asmaa and Lalla Hasnaa.
Members of the official delegation accompanying the French President were invited to the dinner banquet, along the Head of Moroccan Government, the Speakers of the two Houses of Parliament, the King’s Advisors, cabinet members, and several other civilian and military personalities, as well as figures from the worlds of literature, sports, and arts.
At the end of the dinner, King Mohammed VI, accompanied by Crown Prince Moulay El Hassan, Prince Moulay Rachid and Princesses Lalla Khadija, Lalla Meryem, Lalla Asmaa and Lalla Hasnaa, took leave of his guests.
President Macron’s three-day state visit to Morocco at the invitation of the King opened new prospects to a sustainable and forward-looking cooperation and enshrined a shared ambition to give a new momentum to a renewed partnership.
It was also an opportunity to renew France’s backing to Morocco’s sovereignty over its Sahara as reaffirmed by President Macron in a speech he delivered Tuesday before the Moroccan Parliament, and during the tête-à-tête talks he held in Rabat on Monday with King Mohammed VI, when he reiterated, as he did in the letter he had sent to the Monarch last July, that “the present and future of Western Sahara lie within the framework of Moroccan sovereignty.”
President Macron also reiterated that “autonomy under Moroccan sovereignty is the framework within which this (Sahara) issue must be resolved,” and that “the autonomy plan of 2007 proposed by Morocco constitutes the only basis for achieving a fair, lasting, and negotiated political solution, in accordance with the resolutions of the United Nations Security Council.”
Speaking Tuesday afternoon at the closing of a Morocco-France business summit, President Macron said the road is now paved for French companies to invest in the Moroccan Sahara.