PARIS (Reuters) – France will end visa restrictions for Moroccan citizens, French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna announced on Friday, in a sign of warmer relations between the two countries after more than a year of tensions. between Paris and Rabat.
“We have taken measures with our Moroccan partners to re-establish a consular relationship”, said the minister, this Friday, after conversations with the Moroccan foreign minister, Nasser Bourita, in Rabat.
France, pressured by public opinion to act to curb undocumented migrants, announced last year that it would reduce the number of visas granted to citizens of Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia due to the refusal of North African countries to take back their citizens. who live illegally in France.
It was not immediately clear whether France received anything in return from Morocco. Moroccan Foreign Minister Bourita said France took a unilateral decision to end restrictions after what he said was also a unilateral decision to introduce restrictions.
France has generally warmer relations with Morocco than with its neighbor Algeria, also a former colony.
But ties between the two countries deteriorated after media reports last year suggested that French President Emmanuel Macron’s phone was on a list of potential targets for the Moroccan government’s surveillance using Pegasus software. Morocco denied the accusation and said it does not use Pegasus.
The improvement in relations comes two days after France and Morocco meet in the semifinals of the World Cup in Qatar. France won the match, which gave greater visibility to the extensive ties between the two countries and their dual nationalities.
(Reporting by Michel Rose and Tassilo Hummel).
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