French President to visit Morocco

French President Francois Hollande heads to Morocco later Wednesday for a two-day visit that will include talks with King Mohammed VI and senior government officials, the Elysee Palace indicated here. France has the closest ties with Morocco of any of the North African former colonies in the Maghreb and it is the largest foreign investor in Morocco and a strong advocate of better European Union ties between the 27-nation group and Rabat. Hollande will kick of his visit with a meeting Wednesday evening in Casablanca with the Moroccan King before the French and Moroccan delegations get to work on consolidating the already "high-grade" relations between the two countries. Hollande is taking several important ministers with him - probably seven or eight - and also over 50 businessmen to discuss ways of bolstering trade and investment. Morocco is the second nation in the Maghreb to be visited by Hollande, who several months ago went to Algeria on a trip that was aimed to further reconciliation between the two countries that fought a bitter war in the 1950s which culminated in Algerian independence in 1962. The Moroccan transition to statehood was smoother and less bloody and relations today reflect this but Rabat was peeved Hollande chose Algeria as his first Maghreb destination. Relations were put back on track quickly, partly because Paris explained that 2012 was the 50th anniversary of the end of the Algerian war and should be marked by a French presidential visit to Algiers. King Mohammed VI was the first foreign leader to visit Paris after Hollande took office last June, a demonstration of the close ties between the two men. On the international scene, Paris has constantly backed Moroccan demands for better status with the EU and the French government has also backed Morocco's proposals for wide-reaching autonomy but not for independence for the Western Sahara zone which has been resisting Moroccan annexation for four decades. France garnered support for Morocco in the UN Security Council and has been a staunch supporter of Rabat's position relative to Algerian-backed Polisario militants who have waged a war against the Moroccan army in the Western Sahara for decades.