Those who have an interest in it and follow Franco-Moroccan relations have recently been able to enjoy reading a large number of articles in Spanish, English, French and Arabic on, among other things, many online newspapers — https://maroc-diplomatique.net/; https://northafricapost.com/; https://atalayar.com/; https://fr.le360.ma/; https://fr.hespress.com/; https://medias24.com/; https://www.moroccoworldnews.com/; https://www.akhbarona.com/; https://alyaoum24.com/; https://24saa.ma/; https://es.rue20.com/ — which return to these relations since the preparation by France of the occupation of Morocco (protectorate treacherously turned into colonization) and the evolution of the French will of subjugation of our country by any means to allow a maximum of spoliation of our wealth and our property for the benefit of operators imposed by French state. The various speakers, each according to their specialty, have contributed to documenting and highlighting the degree of greed, deviousness and Machiavellianism shown by the French colonizers in Morocco during their military occupation of our country and how they continued their deceit, on the economic, financial, commercial and cultural level, after the independence of Morocco.
On a more personal level, my working documents are filled with examples (duly informed) of attempts to recruit myself, since my entry into private activity for my own account in Casablanca in 1988, with their objective for me to serve (first and foremost) the French economic and commercial interests in our country. Then, for not having adhered to the advances that were made to me (I suppose), multiple difficulties, coming from who knows where, arose on my path because, in essence, I was presumed guilty of wanting bring my contribution to the emergence of a Moroccan expertise activity independent of that of France. The examples are numerous but I will illustrate with only one case (duly documented in my archives):
About twenty years ago, I had been contacted by a large agri-food group in Fez (whose name I am not mentioning because the Moroccan group is well known in our country and I did not ask for its agreement for indicating their name) for support for HACCP certification. I spent two days with the managers and the staff who paid for two nights in a hotel in Fez for my stay. I then made a proposal for support (including one month of sustained work) including my presence in the company part of the time for the implementation (and validation) of control procedures (theirs had to be reviewed and reinforced) by involving their staff in the work. How a surprise for me then to receive afterwards an email (which I still have in my archives) from the quality manager of this group to tell me that they have a better offer by telephone (which they have endorsed) from someone else (whom I later learned was a French professional) who undertook to certify them HACCP for less than half of my offer and without going to their unit (condition indicated in the message I received!), which is unprofessional and contrary to the principles of HACCP which require the presence on site of the certifier selected to carry out the work. I have other examples documented in the same way which reinforce, in a way, the hypothesis that for neocolonial France, all deceitful means are good (and regardless of the price) to stop any attempt to decouple the activity of Moroccan expertise from that of France, the only one (exclusively) that these neo-colonizers are ready to recognize as valid for working in our country.
In fact, here and there in several articles of this blog, examples are mentioned which show, after the cessation of the military colonization phase of our country, some of the subterfuges that France used to firmly maintain its control over our economy, our finances, our trade and even our culture. But if Morocco in turn used force to oust colonial France, our senior officials have (supposedly) chosen a civilized approach to impress on French officials that Morocco was a confirmed nation-state before it was the case for France and that our country wants to recover that place in the concert of nations. In short, the Kingdom seems to be telling them, you can stay if you wish and continue your activities in Morocco, at the same time as other EU countries, but by offering products and/or services that are correct and a competitive quality/price.
This is exactly the kind of language that the French refuse to hear while denying Moroccans the right to have such an attitude in economic and commercial relations with France.
The fact is that the relatively recent colonization of other countries is not exclusive to France. But, if Great Britain, Spain and other countries have subsequently renewed peaceful economic and commercial relations with their former colonies, this does not seem to be the case for France with all the countries of its former colonies. It is difficult for us to know the exact reasons for this specificity of colonial France. We can only hypothesize.
In this respect, while I was a student assistant in Lausanne (Switzerland) in the seventies of the last century (graduate student but not yet qualified), I earned a little money (by supervising the students of the first years) but not enough to pay me a plane ticket (which was expensive at the time) to return for the end of the year in question in Morocco (sensitive period to spend alone for a foreigner). I had then opted for an organized trip of a few days to visit, among other things, the Coliseum and the Catacombs of Rome. On the way back, the train was more than crowded. Exhausted with fatigue, I mechanically opened the door of a sleeping cabin. I then apologized and was about to close the door when the (German) customer who was sleeping asked me to stay. He said to me (in essence): “You can stay and sit down; opposite (on the other berth) there is my wife. We’ve been married for 49 years and don’t make a lot of noise anymore. Then he added “Excuse my French. When I was a soldier in Paris everyone spoke to me in German”.
It is usually said that the French speak foreign languages poorly. But there, in five years (German occupation of France), many were the French men and women who advanced very quickly in learning the language of the Germanic occupier. Then, it must be said, France had this (exclusive) particularity of having passed (without transition) from the status of a country subjugated by Germany following a degrading defeat to the privilege and the burden of sit among the limited number of world powers in the Security Council and have a veto. This is a dazzling, even exhilarating promotion that France would like to maintain at all costs, which is perfectly understandable. But, not having raw materials to put forward as is the case for Russia or industrial, economic and commercial know-how whose usefulness is recognized throughout the world like China, France is reduced to wanting to establish its status as a “great power” on the maintenance of a CFA Franc and commercial relations with its former colonies which are favorable to it, that is to say very detrimental for us, its former colonies. Careful observation of what is currently happening in the world in general and in Africa in particular, shows that there is no longer any country on this planet ready to submit to these French neocolonial conditions.
On the other hand, relations between countries, commercial and otherwise, are a necessity. But for them to last, they must be based on proven trust. However, the military, or subsequent economic and commercial colonial presence of European countries in Africa has lasted for centuries and has evolved from a colonialism based on military force towards an economic and commercial neo-colonialism based, among other things, on lies, deceit and hypocrisy. In this relationship, our African countries are always the losers.
Considering the duration in centuries of these deceptions, bad commitments, hypocrisies, deceits and other greed of Europeans with regard to us Africans, it is very difficult for the citizens of our Continent to trust again the European officials whose the word has lost all credibility on our Continent.
But, as civilized people, we must not make future European generations pay the equivalent price for the plunder and suffering that their colonial countries caused to our nations. However, this does not call into question the distrust that our countries harbor towards the current leaders of the countries of colonial Europe.
It will therefore be necessary, in our opinion, to find a new modus operandi to put our African relations with the Europeans back on new bases. That being said, someone (European colonial country) who has cheated for centuries will cheat again, which will continue to tarnish their credibility for a long time.
Under these conditions, why not make the acceptance of any future commitment by an EU country subject to the guarantee by another power (acting as an authorized third party) chosen by common agreement by Africa and the EU. We understand that they will find it difficult to accept Russia as a sponsor, but they will be able, for example, to choose between China and the USA.
The shaping of this new paradigm by Africa could better guarantee the success of the upcoming implementation of Zlecaf (African Continental Free Trade Area).
