France sparked a furious response from the pro-independence Polisario Front on Tuesday when it declared that autonomy within Morocco was the "only" foundation for resolving the long-standing Western Sahara conflict.

French President Emmanuel Macron said that the Moroccan offer was "now the only basis that will lead to a just, lasting and negotiated political solution in line with UN Security Council resolutions" in a letter congratulating King Mohammed VI on the 25th anniversary of his coronation.

In response to Macron's claim that Rabat's proposal for Western Saharan autonomy within Morocco was the "only" way to resolve the conflict, Algeria announced on Tuesday that it was removing its ambassador to France.

The official news agency APS cited the Algerian Foreign Ministry as saying, "The Algerian diplomatic representation in France is now the responsibility of a charge d'affaires," as it slammed Macron's statement as a "step that no other French government had taken before."

Any attempt to include independence in a vote has been consistently rejected by Rabat.

The Moroccan royal court applauded Macron's remarks in his letter, calling it "a significant step in support of Moroccan sovereignty" over the Western Sahara. 

Meanwhile, the Polisario stated that the French President was endorsing Morocco's "violent and illegal occupation" of the peninsula.

Algeria, Morocco's fiercest adversary and the movement's principal supporter, had previously anticipated Macron's remarks last week denouncing the hardening of France's stance.

Some background 

It is worth noting that the Trump administration, in late 2020, in exchange for normalization with "Israel", recognized Morocco's "sovereignty" over Western Sahara.

Spain declared its support for the Moroccan autonomy plan in 2022, after decades of trying to maintain a neutral stance between Morocco and the Polisario.

The Western Sahara conflict began in 1975, when Spain withdrew from the territory, leaving it disputed between Morocco and the Polisario Front, a Sahrawi nationalist movement that seeks independence for the region.

Morocco controls about 80% of Western Sahara, which it considers its own "sovereign territory". The region is rich in phosphates and fisheries.

The Polisario Front continues to call for a UN-supervised referendum on self-determination in Western Sahara, as agreed in the 1991 ceasefire agreement, but this has not yet happened.

After nearly 30 years, the ceasefire in Western Sahara broke down in November 2020. Morocco sent troops to the far south of the territory to disperse Sahrawi protesters who were blocking the only road to Mauritania and the rest of Africa. The Polisario Front claims that the road was built after 1991, in violation of the ceasefire agreement.

In the last four years, the Sahrawi people have reported frequent clashes with Moroccan forces. They have often claimed to have inflicted casualties on the Moroccan side, but these claims have never been confirmed by Morocco.