[2] The United States had begun to replace France both militarily and economically, just as the protectorate authorities had feared since the landing of the Allied forces in November 1942.

[4]Free France then retook control of the largely collaborationist colonial administration sympathetic to Philippe Pétain, which boded well for Moroccan nationalists.

[2] Sultan Muhammad V of Morocco, who was a de facto prisoner of the colonial administration, though he had made no public gesture of sympathy toward Nazi Germany, and had protected Moroccan Jews from antisemitic policies, received confirmation from President Franklin D. Roosevelt at the Casablanca Conference of January 1943, that the US would support the independence of Morocco when the war was over.

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.

[2] On the night of January 28, Ahmed Balafrej, secretary general of the Istiqlal Party, as well as his associate Mohamed Lyazidi, were arrested in Rabat under the pretext of sharing intelligence with Axis powers.