A French delegation visiting Morocco with President Emmanuel Macron on Tuesday unveiled investment plans in the disputed Western Sahara as part of a broader suite of agreements and partnerships between the two countries.

Projects in Dakhla and the Guelmim-Oued Noun region are among the 10 billion euros ($10.8 billion) worth of initiatives announced during Macron's three-day visit to Rabat, which include agreements to build and expand renewable energy and transportation infrastructure throughout the North African Kingdom.

In a 40-minute speech at Morocco's parliament, Macron said France's policy shift in the disputed territory would help write a new chapter in the close yet delicate relations between France and a former colony where it retains deep economic ties.

“The present and future of (Western Sahara) lie within the framework of Moroccan sovereignty,” he told an applauding audience at Morocco’s Parliament.

Referencing a July letter he wrote to King Mohammed VI announcing France’s position, Macron called Morocco’s plan to offer autonomy — not independence — to the region’s Indigenous Sahrawis the “only” basis to resolve the decades-long conflict.

In a subsequent speech at the International University of Rabat, Macron again noted that several of the projects announced — including those by France's development agency, AFD — were in the disputed territory.

The Western Sahara is a former Spanish colony in northwest Africa that is roughly the size of the United Kingdom and claimed by both Morocco and the pro-independence Polisario Front, which is based in Algeria and governs a sliver of land that lies beyond a Moroccan-built sand wall.

The United Nations considers the territory “non-self-governing” and since brokering a 1991 cease-fire has funded a peacekeeping mission designed to organize a referendum for the Sahrawi people to determine the future of the region.

After years of deadlocks over who would be allowed to participate in such a vote, Morocco unveiled a plan to offer the region autonomy but not independence in 2007. The conflict, often forgotten outside of northwest Africa, lay dormant until Polisario withdrew from the cease-fire in 2020, leading to what the U.N. has called “low level hostilities” between the two sides.

Around that time, Morocco picked up its efforts to recruit support for its plan from its political and economic partners. Though France has historically been the primary permanent member on the U.N. Security Council to back Morocco’s claims, it lagged behind countries including the United States, Israel and Spain in backing the autonomy plan.