Proclamation of Independence of Morocco

On November 8, 1942, Allied forces landed in Morocco—French protectorate in Morocco since the 1912 Treaty of Fes—during Operation Torch.Free France then retook control of the largely collaborationist colonial administration sympathetic to Philippe Pétain, which boded well for Moroccan nationalists. On January 11, 1944, with the outcome of World War II still uncertain to all but the most perceptive [dubious], 66 Moroccans signed the public proclamation demanding an end to colonialism and the reinstatement of Morocco's independence, an enormous risk at the time. The main nationalist leaders of all origins united around the Proclamation of Independence, forming a real political movement, representative of a wider segment of Moroccan society, urban and rural. They decided together to ally themselves with Sultan Mohammed V, to whom they submitted their demand. Among the signatories were members of the resistance, symbols of a free Morocco, and people who would become key figures in the construction of the new Morocco. == Text ==

Text of the Proclamation of Independence of January 11 presented to Sultan Mohammed V: Signatories Source: == Consequences ==

The reaction was immediate: great pressure upon Sultan Mohammed V to publicly condemn the Proclamation, as well as the detention of signatories and known nationalist activists. In Fes, Abdelaziz Bendriss and Hachemi Filali were incarcerated. In total, French authorities arrested 20 nationalist activists in the aftermath of this manifesto. It was with this document that the Moroccan Nationalist Movement allied itself with the sultan. The sultan also started to become an important national folk symbol, delivering the symbolic Tangier speech April 9-10, 1947 and being forced exile on the eve of Eid al-Adha August 20, 1953. The French Protectorate in Morocco came to an end on March 2, 1956 with the Franco-Moroccan Joint Declaration signed in Rabat. == See also ==