During a two-day visit to Rabat on 15–16 July 2026, French Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu formally turned the page on three years of diplomatic friction that had slashed the number of French visas issued to Moroccans by 50 %. At a joint press conference with Moroccan counterpart Aziz Akhannouch, Lecornu confirmed that consular services in Casablanca, Rabat and Tangier have returned to pre-2021 processing volumes and that the 2021 “visa cap” has been lifted in full. Morocco, for its part, agreed to accelerate the issuance of laissez-passer documents for Moroccan nationals with a French removal order—an issue that had triggered the original French restrictions. The thaw goes beyond paperwork. Paris and Rabat signed an “enhanced mobility partnership” that commits both sides to simplify procedures for business travellers, researchers and students through priority appointment slots and a 48-hour fast-track service for short-stay Schengen visas. A pilot electronic visa (e-Visa) system—using Morocco’s digital civil-status database to pre-verify identity—is due to start in October for corporate travellers attending the Casablanca Smart Industry Forum. Lecornu also used the trip to relaunch flagship economic projects, including a €2 billion under-sea power interconnector and joint development of green-hydrogen hubs around Dakhla and Port-la-Nouvelle. Industry associations welcomed the announcements, noting that visa bottlenecks had hampered Franco-Moroccan supply-chain audits since 2022. For French multinationals, the headline is certainty: human-resources teams can again plan short-term assignments without allocating extra weeks for consular delays. Travel-management companies expect Casablanca and Marrakech flight bookings to rebound to 2019 levels by year-end, while French universities anticipate a surge in Moroccan student applications for the 2027 academic intake. Longer term, the mobility partnership is pitched as a template for France’s new strategy with other Maghreb partners—Algeria and Tunisia are watching closely. With the EU’s Talent Partnerships still embryonic, bilateral accords such as this could set the pace for regulated labour exchanges in North Africa.
Source: Le Monde / Yahoo News
