France-Morocco industrial ties face new european policy challenges

For several months, Paris has been actively urging the European Union to reconsider its industrial strategy. The French government believes that European competitiveness can no longer solely rely on open markets and global competition. Instead, it advocates for a decisive industrial policy, prioritizing European production in strategic sectors and reducing reliance on China. Within the European Commission, Executive Vice-President Stéphane Séjourné is championing a proposed regulation aimed at accelerating industrial development. Despite internal compromises that scaled back its initial ambitions, France maintains an assertive stance. It now seeks to broaden the text’s scope: mechanisms for European preference in public procurement, purchasing, and subsidies would extend beyond clean technologies, energy-intensive industries, and electric vehicles to include areas such as shipbuilding, railway equipment, and even the chemical industry.

Significantly, these are precisely the sectors where Franco-Moroccan industrial collaboration is most advanced. France likely stands as the European Union member state whose productive apparatus is most deeply integrated with that of Morocco. This unique position defines Paris’s approach: it champions a stringent “Made in Europe” while having simultaneously cultivated a co-industrialization strategy over two decades with a country outside the EU. In the automotive sector, both Renault factories in Tanger and Stellantis plants in Kenitra now function as extensions of French production lines. Component suppliers in Morocco manufacture parts that directly feed European industrial sites. A similar dynamic is evident in the aerospace industry, where companies like Safran, Daher, and Latécoère have progressively incorporated Moroccan industrial capabilities into their value chains. The Kingdom has evolved beyond a mere subcontracting hub; it now directly contributes to the competitiveness of French and wider European industrial output. This profound integration now encompasses highly strategic domains, including batteries for electric vehicles, green hydrogen, critical materials, port infrastructure, and digital technologies.

“France is arguably the member state whose productive apparatus is most intertwined with that of Morocco.”

Paris’s objective is not to isolate Europe, but rather to prevent a broad “Made with Europe” approach—encompassing all eighty or so of the Union’s commercial partners indiscriminately—from diluting the essence of European preference. France advocates for a more discerning strategy: differentiating countries that genuinely enhance European competitiveness and supply security from those that remain merely external suppliers, or even pose a potential threat to European sovereignty.

The extent to which this vision will be embraced remains to be seen. In mid-July, the 27 member states are slated to conduct an initial political assessment of the ongoing work in the Council regarding the industrial acceleration regulation. Germany’s stance will be pivotal. Berlin has historically viewed French proposals for European industrial preference with reservation, primarily due to concerns about potential trade restrictions from Beijing and Chinese reprisals against its powerful automotive industry. However, under the strain of an unprecedented industrial crisis and an intensified domestic political debate fueled by the rise of the AfD, Germany can no longer simply champion classic free trade. Could a selective openness to trusted partners offer a point of compromise between Paris and Berlin? This concept will ultimately shape the future of the Franco-Moroccan industrial partnership. While France has never formally requested Morocco’s inclusion among future trusted partners, its entire industrial and diplomatic strategy positions the Kingdom as a natural candidate for such a designation.

The debate will also unfold within the European Parliament, where two French rapporteurs hold influential positions in the examination of the regulation. A particular responsibility will fall upon them, as well as upon the French delegations, to ensure that the new regulatory frameworks being developed by the Union do not inadvertently undermine the future of the Moroccan-French industrial partnership.