Reserved for subscribers
LETTER FROM MAGHREB. President Macron’s impossible trip to Rabat, Tebboune’s postponed visit to Paris: migraines with the capitals of North Africa are piling up.
By Benoit Delmas
Published on
Subscriber-only audio playback
IDuring his first five-year term, Emmanuel Macron had swept through North Africa without taboos or ideology, determined to settle the disputes of the XXe century, conscious that the three-colored meadow was being pegged by new voracious gardeners (China, Turkey), that the French-speaking world was losing market share. Like a hussar on the diplomatic roof, Emmanuel Macron will have braved some prohibitions by drastically restricting the number of visas granted to Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia; by speaking without jargon to the Algerian leaders; by confronting habits encysted by decades of use. The ideological withdrawal of the president is now real at the start of his second term. He takes note of the discontent. And will play the card of the economy while assuming the bad…