Under the impetus of HM King Mohammed VI, Africa is taking its maritime destiny into its own hands and repositioning itself as a central player around this Atlantic space, French Euro-African relations expert Guillaume Chaban-Delmas said on Tuesday.
The statement was delivered in response to the Sovereign's message to participants in the "Africa for the Ocean" Summit, co-chaired on Monday in Nice by HRH Princess Lalla Hasnaa, Representative of His Majesty the King, and French President Emmanuel Macron.
Behind this strategic review of the Kingdom's maritime role lie the economic, political and legal issues that will determine the continent's future, explained the French expert.
Pointing out that international trade by sea is still organized according to a logic inherited from the colonial period, Chaban-Delmas noted that the vision carried by the Kingdom, under the leadership of HM the King, "engages a dynamic of assertion of Africa as a sovereign power around an Atlantic axis carrying a new balance in the structuring of world trade."
According to the perspective defined by HM the King, he explained, the Atlantic Ocean is conceived as a space for South-South cooperation. The Dakhla Atlantic port, he continued, is fully in line with this regional dynamic.
He concluded that "the Atlantic must be a space for the co-construction of a legal framework that fully affirms the sovereignty of the African continent."
MAP: 10 June 2025
