The move signals a mutual ambition to craft an agreement anchored in enduring strategic interests. Both nations share a desire to establish, with necessary adjustments, a counterpart to the Élysée Treaty signed in 1963 by General de Gaulle and Chancellor Konrad Adenauer between France and Germany.
This committee is not tasked with negotiating the treaty itself—that duty falls to the two governments—but with putting forward proposals. What kind? The guiding principles of the partnership, strategic priorities looking ahead to 2035-2040, mechanisms for political dialogue, and areas of cooperation spanning economic, security, military, academic, and cultural fields.
Still, an initial fundamental question arises: why a friendship treaty? It will replace the so-called La Celle-Saint-Cloud agreement, signed in France on 6 November 1955, which laid the groundwork for Morocco’s return to independence and the end of the protectorate, officially formalised on 2 March 1956. Under that accord, Paris authorised the return to the throne of Mohammed V, who had been deported on 20 August 1953.
The goal today is likely to consolidate the gains of a privileged, even exceptional, cooperation while laying the strategic foundations for an equal partnership, one projected across the decades ahead.
Four main pillars stand out. The first concerns the economy: Paris’s commitment to make major investments in Moroccan industrial sectors—automotive, rail, defence, and maritime transport—and to support their modernisation through cutting-edge technologies.
For its part, Rabat’s commitment revolves around several axes: preferential access for French companies to large infrastructure projects, along with tax incentives.
“This friendship treaty would link France to a non-EU state, whereas Algeria has never managed to finalise a similar accord in more than two decades, despite several attempts under the presidencies of Jacques Chirac and Abdelaziz Bouteflika, and later Emmanuel Macron and Abdelmadjid Tebboune.”
— observer
The second pillar focuses on security and defence industry cooperation: transfers of military technology aimed, over time, at making Morocco a regional hub for producing light and heavy equipment (aviation, munitions, military vehicles, armoured systems, etc.), expanding joint training and exercise programmes, and bolstering coordination on security and intelligence to meet regional security challenges, notably in the Sahel.
The cultural domain forms a third pillar, and a significant one: maintaining the privileged position of the French language in the education system, promoting Francophonie without hindering the kingdom’s openness to a global business language like English, facilitating access for Moroccan students to French universities—currently over 42,000—expanding the existing network of twelve French cultural institutes, and opening new schools, especially in the southern provinces.
As for the final pillar, it concerns geopolitics and strategy. What does it involve? Paris’s support for Morocco’s higher interests: backing the autonomy plan for the Sahara, endorsed by the Security Council within the framework of the negotiated settlement process (Resolution 2797 of 31 October 2025), support within European Union institutions, defence of Moroccan interests in sectors such as agriculture and fisheries, and across various bilateral and multilateral cooperation frameworks.
Moreover, France hopes to rely on Morocco to take part, in various ways, in new strategic alliances in West Africa, where it has gradually lost influence over the past decade. The aim? To benefit from the kingdom’s position as a regional hub.
Ultimately, this treaty carries major symbolic and diplomatic weight. It would bind France to a non-EU state, while Algeria has never managed to finalise a similar accord in more than two decades, despite several attempts under the presidencies of Jacques Chirac and Abdelaziz Bouteflika, and later Emmanuel Macron and Abdelmadjid Tebboune.
Morocco now stands as a regional power, an economic hub, and a key player on energy, logistics, and security issues. This treaty could thus take on a demonstrative and exemplary dimension: that of a model capable of reshaping new forms of cooperation between Europe and Africa.
