Column by Boualem Sansal

From the day I arrived in Morocco, in Casablanca, on October 28, 2026, to my return to Paris this November 6, travelling through Rabat, the immaculately kept capital, imperial Fez and the new Dakhla, in Morocco’s far south, where the desert finally meets the Atlantic and looks out towards America, I have seen a country standing tall, healthy and serene, shaping its own history with its own hands and intellect.

In 1987, King Hassan II applied for Morocco to join the European Economic Community. The application was rejected: Morocco was not a European country. The answer seemed obvious. It is much less so today. For the same Europe that told Morocco it could not join the Community because it was African now tells us that two cities located in Africa constitute its borders.

In recent years, with a bewildering acceleration over the past few months, a considerable shift has taken place in the Algerian regime’s approach. Western Sahara is no longer presented merely as an issue of decolonization, or of solidarity with the Polisario and the SADR. It is now officially a matter of national security, accorded the highest priority. Words have meaning. When a state turns one external issue among many into a priority matter of national security, it changes the very nature of the problem. What is happening?