Ciotti says ready to recognise Moroccanness of Sahara if Les Républicains come to power

LONDON - The leader of the conservative Les Républicains Éric Ciotti said Sunday he is ready to officially recognize the Moroccanness of the Sahara if his party returns to power in France.

In an interview with Israel’s i24 news TV channel, Ciotti firmly took the opposite stance of French President Emmanuel Macron’s over the Western Sahara issue, firmly reaffirming his support for the Moroccanness of the Sahara.

“This is a position that is not new to me in any case. I have already expressed this several months ago,” Ciotti told i24 news.

“I believe today, it suffices to look at the development of these regions of the Sahara administered today in an exemplary manner by Morocco to measure that there is no subject, that there is no more debate than this the debate that is simply maintained for internal political reasons of by Algeria,” he said.

Last August, Moroccan King Mohammed VI implicitly exerted pressure on France to explicitly recognise the kingdom’s sovereignty over the Sahara.

"In the face of such positive developments, which concern countries on different continents, I want to send a clear message to all: the Sahara issue is the prism through which Morocco looks at the world, and it is the clear and simple criterion by which it measures the sincerity of friendships and the effectiveness of partnerships,” said the monarch in a speech to commemorate the 69th anniversary of the King and People's Revolution.

Ciotti said that France made a lot of concessions with regard to Algeria and he saw a very little return.

Ciotti visited Morocco May 3-5 during which he met with Prime Minister Aziz Akhannouch and the Secretary General of the Istiqlal Party Nizar Baraka.