Forty-four years of protectorate ended when an exiled sultan came home — the monarchy, the nationalists and the mountain fighters won it together.
On 2 March 1956, Morocco ended forty-four years of French and Spanish protectorate rule and regained its independence under Sultan Mohammed V. The independence struggle — a rare alliance of the monarchy, the Istiqlal nationalist party and the rural Army of Liberation — had been ignited three years earlier when France exiled the Sultan to Madagascar.
