Who is Samira Sitail, the new Moroccan Ambassador to France?

This position has been vacant since January 2023. On Thursday, October 19, Morocco’s King Mohammed VI appointed Samira Sitaila as the kingdom’s new ambassador to France. The unexpected appointment of a new “Ambassador of His Majesty the King to the French Republic”, who becomes the first woman to hold this high post.

Samira Satail was born in France in 1964. She is best known for her qualities as a journalist and audiovisual communications specialist: she was a reporter, news director and then star presenter of Morocco’s second public television channel, 2M.

The Franco-Moroccan, who studied at Paris-Diderot and then at Celles, has never held political or diplomatic functions until now, but has great knowledge of the political sphere and Moroccan economic and social issues, combined with a deep knowledge of the French political landscape. Most notably, she headed the communications and press department for the 2016 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP22) and founded a public relations consultancy last June.

married to a diplomat

“His resume has nothing in common with the resume of ordinary ministers or senior diplomats who served as Moroccan ambassador to France. This is therefore an unprecedented appointment, but it certainly follows a certain logic, since Morocco wants its voice to be better heard in France. She knows the media, she knows how to talk to them, and she has connections in the press and culture that go beyond just the political sphere,” political scientist Abdellah Turabi analyzes to our colleagues at Le Monde.

Based in Paris, she began a diplomatic career, as did her husband Samir Addare, former Moroccan Ambassador to Belgium and Greece and current Permanent Representative of the Kingdom of Morocco to UNESCO. Little known to the general public in France, she stood out on BFMTV a few weeks ago after going on a rant against French journalists who claimed Morocco had not accepted aid from France.

“It is very serious to say that Morocco refuses help from any country, it is even a call for rebellion on the part of the Moroccan population,” she said. Words that were widely welcomed in Morocco, at the height of the crisis between Paris and Rabat, partly related to the Pegasus affair.

If this episode could have played a role in her appointment to this post, Le Monde recalls, the ambassador’s dual citizenship could cause some tension in the kingdom. Three years ago, MPs from several conservative parties attacked Chakib Benmoussa, Morocco’s ambassador to France until 2021, over his alleged binationalism, which he has always denied.