The Moroccan Sahara: Record of an Artificial Conflict

Presentation of the book, edited by Charles Saint-Prot, Jean-Yves de Cara et Christophe Boutin. (Editions du Cerf, collection Patrimoines, Paris, 2016, 320 pages)

Forty years after the Green March of November 6, 1975 that put the issue of the Spanish colonization of the southern provinces of Morocco to rest, and allowed their restitution to the Western Kingdom, an extensive analysis of the persistence of conflict in the Moroccan Sahara (so-called “Western” Sahara) – a conflict artificially created by Algeria and the Communist bloc in the mid-1970s – has become necessary. However much some people might regret the good old days of the Communist bloc, the question of the future of Morocco’s Saharan provinces has been settled since 1975 – the Madrid Accords of November 14, 1975 having put an end to their status as non-self-governing territories – but the diplomatic and political conflict persists on the international stage.