The government of France has formally recognized Morocco’s claims of sovereignty over the northwest African territory of Western Sahara. The decision announced by French President Emmanuel Macron on Tuesday is a major victory for Moroccan King Mohammed VI and a setback to Western Sahara’s Indigenous people, the Sahrawi, who’ve fought for decades to organize a U.N.-backed referendum on independence. Morocco has occupied Western Sahara since 1975 in defiance of the United Nations and international law. Over the past four decades, thousands of Sahrawi activists have been tortured, imprisoned, killed and disappeared while resisting the Moroccan occupation.