Mohammed V returned to Rabat on November 16, 1955, after France, worn down by two years of nationalist agitation and violence following his forced exile in 1953, agreed to his restoration. Enormous crowds greeted him as a symbol of Moroccan sovereignty, and within months France formally recognized Moroccan independence, ending 44 years of protectorate rule and elevating Mohammed V from sultan to king.
Two years earlier, French colonial authorities had bundled Mohammed V and his family onto a plane and exiled him first to Corsica and then to Madagascar, replacing him with a more pliant relative. The move backfired spectacularly: rather than pacifying Morocco, the exile ignited a nationalist movement that united rural tribes, urban elites, and the fledgling Istiqlal party behind the exiled sultan as a unifying symbol of resistance.
By 1955, armed uprisings and urban terrorism had made the protectorate increasingly ungovernable, and French officials—already stretched thin fighting a separate war in Algeria—decided restoration was less costly than continued exile. Mohammed V's return to Rabat on November 16 triggered scenes of jubilation across the country, with crowds lining streets for miles. The following March, France formally ended the protectorate, and Mohammed V, transitioning from sultan to king, became the founding father of modern independent Morocco, a legacy his son Hassan II and grandson Mohammed VI would build upon for the rest of the twentieth century.