Whatever the outcome of the vote in the Security Council on the American draft resolution on Western Sahara, the essential part has already been decided. Because this text, whether it is adopted or rejected, has revealed a deeper dynamic: how a colonial fait accompli was normalized, legitimized and then almost endorsed by an international system that is supposed to have turned the page of imperialism. Beneath this apparent Moroccan success hides another hand, that of a nostalgic France which, unable to take responsibility for its African decline, agitates Rabat as an Empire substitute, a docile actor tasked with upholding, on its behalf, the remnants of a lost influence.

The history of Western Sahara is not only one of occupation. It is that of continuity. Since the colonial era, “independent” Morocco has remained, to a large extent, a product of French geopolitical engineering. Heir of a Paris-protected monarchy, Rabat was able to convert this dependence into a strategy consisting in serving French interests while cloaking itself in a sovereigntist discourse. The paradox is plain to see: Africa’s last colony is not Western Sahara, but Morocco itself: a country that, while claiming to defend its territorial integrity, is in fact perpetuating the influence policy of a France in decay.

The French move is a shrewd one. While its empire is on the decline, Paris delegates to Rabat the task of containing Algeria, symbolically occupying the Sahel and reintroducing the very idea of domination under the guise of modernity. This proxy colonialism, where the former colonial power hides behind a vassal state, allows France to see itself as central without ever getting its hands dirty.

The Moroccan narrative, or the art of illusion

From a narrative standpoint, Rabat follows the script flawlessly. With the discreet support of French diplomatic networks, the kingdom succeeded in masquerading a decolonization conflict as a matter “advanced regionalization”. Occupation became “stability”, colonization is now called “autonomy”, and Sahrawis are erased in the name of “local population”. The very language of the UN has been imbued with these euphemisms. Behind these words, a vision of the world is imposing itself, one in which the right of peoples to self-determination is reduced to an inconvenient footnote in light of the so-called “reality on the ground”.

This inversion of meaning would never have taken root without a global context conducive to the resurgence of neo-colonial ideologies among Western far-right circles. In this new era of imperial nostalgia, Morocco becomes the ideal showcase. It is this authoritarian state presented as a bulwark against chaos, a medieval monarchy draped in the trappings of modernity, and a docile client for the weary strategies of Paris and Washington.

The draft resolution sponsored by the United States – and largely inspired by French Moroccan circles – translates this deviation. It aims to substitute decolonization logic with a logic of “political settlement”, erecting the 2007 Moroccan initiative as a single, definitive solution. Beneath the diplomatic technicality, the intention is all too clear: erasing the principle of self-determination and replacing it with a fiction of autonomy under Moroccan sovereignty. International law becomes malleable and colonization negotiable.

Even if the Security Council were to narrowly avoid this legal capitulation, the battle of ideas seems already lost. Under French patronage, Rabat has succeeded in imposing its language on the world. The conflict is no longer about law, but about perception. And within this semantic drift, the whole legacy of decolonization begins to falter.

France behind the curtain

France is no longer bothers to hide it. Its diplomatic apparatus, weakened by a series of failures in the Sahel, has fallen back on the Maghreb as a symbolic terrain for revenge. By supporting Morocco, Paris hopes to sustain the illusion of a continuous power. Rabat, for its part, finds in this tutelage the guarantee of impunity. One lends its defunct prestige, the other its useful docility. Together, they stage a performance in which colonization is replayed in new forms. It is less brutal, but no less cynical.

Yet this imperial theater has its cost. By reducing North Africa into a puppet duel – a manipulated Morocco, a demonized Algeria –, Paris is compromising the regional stability it pretends to defend. For Algeria, far from being a peripheral actor, remains the only Maghreb power possessing real strategic depth, authentic sovereignty, and a coherent continental vision.

While Rabat was imposing its narrative, Algiers has often taken refuge in a moral posture, casting itself as the guardian of law and the champion of just causes. While this faithfulness to the principle of self-determination honors its history, it has also limited its capacity of influence. In the new world order, moralism is no longer enough: strategies are required. Algeria must now fully assume its role as a stabilizing power, not out of Third-Worldist nostalgia, but out of geopolitical lucidity.

This implies moving beyond the sterile face-off with Rabat, building a diplomacy of action, and investing in narratives as Morocco has done, but in the service of historical truth. The Maghreb does not need a war of egos, it needs a regional project founded on shared sovereignty and justice. Algeria possesses the diplomatic, economic, and moral resources to regain the initiative. But it must first stop confusing prudence with inertia.

The return of colonialism through language

The case of Western Sahara showcases a global drift: the return of colonialism through words. By transforming occupied territories into “provinces”, by masquerading peoples as “populations”, by renaming domination “autonomy”, the empire is being reinvented without ever being named. This process, which Morocco follows to the letter, is not an innovation but the continuation of an old French project. And that is precisely what makes it so dangerous.

For if the international community were to endorse this drift, it is the entirety of the post-1945 order would collapse. The right of peoples to self-determination would become a mere adjustment variable. Palestine, Papua, New Caledonia, and the Comoros would in turn become “anomalies to be corrected”. The world would enter and era where political realism wipes away the memory of peoples.

Morocco is already preparing to celebrate a victory of narrative, one of a country acting by proxy, in the service of a foreign power nostalgic for its empire. France may find comfort in this illusion, yet it remains isolated on a continent that no longer believes in its message. The real issue, therefore, is not Western Sahara, but the future of the Maghreb.

It now falls on Algeria to break its strategic silence, to embrace its role as a regional power, and to restore a political voice to law, not by moral preaching, but by building equilibrium. In a world where France recycles its imperial illusions and Morocco complies with them complacently, Algeria must once again become what it once was: a center of sovereignty and emancipation. The time of colonial myths is drawing to a close; that of free nations, if it is to return, must first be written.