Morocco and Tunisia become independent

1956

France ends its protectorates over Morocco and Tunisia in March 1956, within weeks of each other.

Longest chain: The Big Bang → First atomic nuclei form → First stars ignite → First galaxies assemble → Milky Way takes shape → The Sun forms → Earth forms → First oceans → First life → Photosynthesis evolves → Great Oxidation Event → Complex cells (eukaryotes) → Multicellular life → First animals → Ediacaran biota → Cloudina, first shells and first predators → Cambrian Explosion → First vertebrates → Jawed fish → Lobe-finned fish → Fish walk onto land → The amniotic egg → Synapsids, the mammal line, split from reptiles → Therapsids, ancestors of mammals → Cynodonts, the ancestors of mammals → First mammals → Asteroid ends the dinosaurs → Early primates → First anthropoid primates → Apes split from monkeys → Great apes split from gibbons → Human line splits from chimpanzees → Walking upright → First stone tools → Genus Homo appears → Homo erectus → Control of fire → Habitual fire and cooking → Homo sapiens appears → Complex language → Natufian villages → Oldest known bread → Agriculture begins → Irrigation → Uruk and the first cities → Cylinder seals → Writing (cuneiform) → Egyptian hieroglyphs → The alphabet → Phoenician alphabet → Greek alphabet → Solon's reforms → Athenian democracy → Trial and death of Socrates → Plato's Academy → Aristotle's Lyceum → Alexander's conquests → Death of Alexander and the Hellenistic kingdoms → Seleucid Empire founded → Parthian Empire founded → Sasanian Empire → Birth of Muhammad → Muhammad's first revelations → The Hijra → Conquest of Mecca → Death of Muhammad and the Rashidun caliphate → Arab conquests → Abbasid Caliphate → Battle of Talas → Paper reaches the Islamic world → House of Wisdom → Al-Khwarizmi and algebra → Fibonacci's Liber Abaci → Bills of exchange → Medici Bank → Double-entry bookkeeping → Muscovy Company → English East India Company → Seven Years' War → Stamp Act → Boston Tea Party → American Revolution → Declaration of Independence → Articles of Confederation ratified → Shays' Rebellion → U.S. Constitution → Louisiana Purchase → Austin's colony in Mexican Texas → Texas Revolution → United States annexes Texas → Mexican-American War → Compromise of 1850 → Kansas-Nebraska Act → Lincoln elected president → Fort Sumter → U.S. Civil War → National Banking Act → Federal Reserve → Great Depression → Nazis take power → Munich Agreement → Nazi-Soviet Pact → Invasion of Poland → World War II → Independence and partition of India → Bandung Conference → Morocco and Tunisia become independent

The story

In March 1956 two North African states gained independence from France. Morocco became independent on March 2 and Tunisia on March 20. Both had been French protectorates, Tunisia since 1881 and Morocco since 1912, in which local rulers kept their thrones but France controlled government. Spain gave up its Moroccan protectorate in April 1956.

After World War II, nationalist movements grew strong. In Tunisia, Habib Bourguiba's Neo-Destour party led a campaign of protest and negotiation. In Morocco, the Istiqlal party and Sultan Mohammed V pressed for independence, and in 1953 France exiled the sultan, which led to widespread unrest. He returned in November 1955 as a hero. France, facing defeat in Indochina in 1954 and a war that started in Algeria in November 1954, chose to negotiate in Morocco and Tunisia. Bourguiba became Tunisia's first president in 1957 when the monarchy was abolished, and Mohammed V became king of Morocco.

Why it mattered

Independence in two Maghreb states left France to focus on its war in Algeria.
Both countries set patterns for later monarchy in Morocco and republican rule in Tunisia.
Tunisia's later 2011 revolution, the start of the Arab Spring, grew from the state that Bourguiba built.

Sources

Tunisia: The protectorate, 1881-1956 Britannica
Morocco: The French zone Britannica
History of Morocco Britannica

Drafted by AI (Claude) from the sources above and checked against them by AI; no historian has reviewed this page. Spot a mistake? Suggest a correction. How pages are made

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BookSusan Gilson Miller

A History of Modern Morocco

At a glance

When: March 2, 1956 (Morocco) and March 20, 1956 (Tunisia)
Where: Morocco and Tunisia, North Africa
Key people: Habib Bourguiba (Tunisian leader)
Mohammed V (sultan, later king, of Morocco)

1881 and 1912years France began its protectorates over Tunisia and Morocco

384earlier events it rests on

1later events that depend on it

Couldn't have happened without

World War II1939

ImportantThe war weakened France and boosted nationalists who had been promised self-rule.

Bandung Conference1955

HelpedThe 1955 Bandung conference raised the profile of Afro-Asian anti-colonial movements.

French conquest of Algiers1830

HelpedFrance's colonial hold on the Maghreb had begun with the conquest of Algiers in 1830.

Led to

Disappearance of Mehdi Ben Barka1965

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