Rhino: Agencies – French President Emmanuel Macron said in a message on Tuesday that his country recognizes the autonomy plan for the Western Sahara region under Moroccan sovereignty as the only way to find a solution to the long-standing dispute over the region.

‘For France, autonomy under Moroccan sovereignty is the framework within which this issue must be resolved,’ Macron said in his message to King Mohammed VI on Morocco’s National Day.

He said Paris considers ‘that the present and future of Western Sahara fall within the framework of Moroccan sovereignty’ and that his country ‘intends to act in harmony with this position at the national and international levels’.

In a statement, the Moroccan Royal Court welcomed the French announcement, saying it was ‘an important and highly significant development in support of Moroccan sovereignty over the Sahara’.

The dispute, which has its roots in 1975, is between Morocco, which says it has sovereignty over Western Sahara, and the Algerian-backed Polisario Front, which seeks to establish an independent state there.