Bon week-end (quand même)

At Monday’s extraordinary joint session of both houses of Parliament, parliamentary group leaders denounced the Algerian regime’s direct role in perpetuating the Sahara conflict. Condemning Algiers’ diplomatic manoeuvres and issuing a solemn call for the release of those held in Tindouf, lawmakers acknowledged the decisive turning point brought about by royal diplomacy following the expiry of MINURSO’s mandate at the United Nations Security Council meeting on October 30, 2026.

Since the October 30 Security Council vote, Algerian media have hailed Russia’s veto as a diplomatic victory. Yet they have largely ignored three crucial facts: the resolution backed by Algiers secured just three votes, MINURSO lost its mandate, and Morocco called for the mission’s withdrawal. A closer look at a victory story that tells only half the truth.

The US-drafted resolution, which would have established autonomy under Moroccan sovereignty as the sole basis for negotiations, secured 11 votes in the UN Security Council. Only Russia’s veto prevented its adoption. That procedural setback does nothing to undo the framework established by Resolution 2797, the three rounds of negotiations held on the basis of Morocco’s autonomy plan or the growing international momentum behind it. Russia’s unfriendly stance is an affront to the Moroccan people and a reckless use of its veto power.

Speaking at Le360’s “Le Grand Témoin” conference in Casablanca on Thursday, October 29, writer and French Academy member Boualem Sansal offered a searing account of his life as a dissident, his fight for freedom of thought in the face of barbarism and the tensions gripping the region. With unstinting praise for Morocco’s strategic maturity and a fierce indictment of Algeria’s militarist dead end, a man whose life has followed an extraordinary course made an impassioned case for clarity and truth.

The UN Security Council is due to vote on a landmark Sahara resolution on Friday, October 30. The text is expected to make Morocco’s autonomy plan the sole basis for negotiations, strip the referendum reference from MINURSO’s name and require a census in Tindouf. Together, the measures would mark a decisive endorsement of Morocco’s sovereignty over the territory. Here is what to expect from the vote.

The revised UN Security Council draft on the Sahara is softer in tone, but its central provisions remain intact. Washington has agreed to a more flexible timetable for restructuring the UN mission and restored familiar language to win broader support. What has not changed is the fundamental shift towards Morocco’s autonomy plan as the sole basis for negotiations, with the referendum option removed from the mission’s name and mandate.

Algerian lawmakers have been summoned by text message to an emergency parliamentary session to authorize the deployment of troops abroad. Exiled opposition figures fear the move could be the first step towards something more troubling: a government turning to war as the only constitutional means of suspending the Constitution and extending the president’s term. The legal machinery is in place. So is the political climate.

The US-led diplomatic push behind the draft 2026 UN Security Council resolution on the Sahara issue threatens to consign not only the referendum but also the Polisario Front to history. By making Morocco’s autonomy plan the sole basis for negotiations, treating the separatist movement’s actions as criminal and recognizing the emergence of credible alternatives such as the Sahrawi Movement for Peace (MSP), the international community is signaling that the militia’s time is up, opening a new chapter for the people living in the Tindouf camps.

The first draft of the UN Security Council’s 2026 resolution on the Sahara signals an unprecedented shift in the UN’s approach to the dispute. It establishes autonomy under Moroccan sovereignty as the only viable political solution and the sole basis for negotiations. MINURSO would become MINUSO, dropping the referendum from both its name and its mandate. Its peacekeeping role would end on April 30, 2027, making way for a special political mission. Here is what the draft proposes.