RN appoints unfriendly president of France-Morocco friendship group
«The Rassemblement National doesn't give a damn about Morocco», burst a member of the French left last December, when we revealed the Macronist MPs' gift of the presidency of the France-Morocco friendship group to the RN. At the time, sources within the National Assembly mentioned the names of Marine Le Pen (who dreams of being received by the King of Morocco like her late father) and Sébastien Chenu. The presidency of the France-Morocco Friendship Group is highly sought-after and could have served to boost the international image of an RN MP.
But while RN was keen to hold on to this friendship group despite the adverse reactions our revelations caused in Paris and Rabat, it clearly has little respect for Morocco. The recent appointment of Hélène Laporte as president of the friendship group is proof of this. The MP for the 2nd constituency of Lot-et-Garonne has little regard for the Kingdom and French-Moroccans.
???? Très honorée d'avoir été nommée Présidente du groupe d'amitié France-Maroc à l'Assemblée nationale et de participer au renforcement de nos liens avec les membres de la Chambre des Représentants marocaine. pic.twitter.com/sGO5Bj3Vb2
— Hélène Laporte (@HeleneLaporteRN) January 29, 2025
The former wealth management consultant risks demolishing the entire edifice of parliamentary diplomacy between the two countries, slowly built up by her predecessors and encouraged by President Macron during his official visit at the end of October 2024. In December 2022, having just been elected to the National Assembly a few months earlier, she criticized the Moroccan supporters who had come out to celebrate the magnificent victory of Morocco's national team over Spain. «In Lille, Nice, and Amiens, the situation is degenerating, giving way to scenes of urban guerrilla warfare over a simple Moroccan football victory... Any pretext is good enough to sow disorder. The feeling of impunity is total!»
An unfriendly president for the friendship group
But it's not just the noisy Moroccan supporters that irritate the far-right politician. Her other obsession is Moroccan tomatoes. On March 12, 2024, she criticized the«unfair competition» from Moroccan tomato exporters, who benefit from the agricultural agreement with the EU. She demanded that the French Minister of Agriculture renegotiate this agreement with Brussels to re-evaluate customs duties to the detriment of Moroccan farmers. More recently, on January 15, 2025, just as the France-Morocco friendship group had officially been assigned to the RN, the MP, not yet president of the group, again called for a review of «the agreement linking us to Morocco, which provides for exemptions from customs duties on tomato imports, including during the summer season».
? Bonjour @AnnieGenevard, profitez de votre visite au #Maroc avec Monsieur Macron pour mettre fin à l'accord commercial visant à exonérer de droits de douane la tomate marocaine et qui place nos agriculteurs ?? dans une situation de concurrence déloyale invivable depuis 2012 ! pic.twitter.com/wg4EeaeA3S
— Hélène Laporte (@HeleneLaporteRN) October 30, 2024
You can't blame an MP from Lot-et-Garonne for defending the Marmande tomato and the farmers in her constituency, especially as Ms. Laporte is close to the Confédération rurale, the farmers' union close to the RN. Nor did her agricultural activism spare the Kingdom's cucumbers. Her perseverance in attacking Morocco and Moroccans makes her a strange president of the France-Morocco friendship group.
How could the RN have made such a gross casting error, risking the ire of Rabat? Especially as the Morocco-EU agricultural agreement is a sensitive issue for the Moroccan government. What, then, can be expected of a president who has never spoken out on the Western Sahara issue, unlike other elected members of the RN, as well as the former president of the France-Morocco friendship group, Karim Ben Cheikh?
? Retrouvez ma question écrite à la Commission européenne sur les fonds débloqués pour le Maroc. Pour le @GroupeID_FR, on est CONTRE ! https://t.co/4pQ8H1LIUM
— Hélène Laporte (@HeleneLaporteRN) April 30, 2020
The new president will have to multiply efforts to reassure her Moroccan counterparts and put her anti-Moroccan media outbursts and amendments hostile to Moroccan interests behind her.
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