After World War II, opposition to French imperialism in North Africa grew. The League of Arab States was founded in 1945 with independence of Arab nations as one of its key aims. The Committee for the Liberation of North Africa, an organisation funded by the League of Arab States, established its headquarters in Cairo. In 1947, Moroccan and Algerian nationalists established the Arab Maghrib Bureau in Cairo, with the intent of creating anti-French propaganda. From 1954-1962, the Algerian War was fought for Algeria’s independence from French rule. During the war, Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser was a strong vocal supporter of the resistance movement and provided military aid to the National Liberation Front (FLN). Egypt supplied the Algerian rebels with military equipment and training soldiers. In 1956, France asked the Security Council of the United Nations to outlaw external aid to the FLN in Algeria. This was targeted towards Egypt’s supply of military equipment to Algerian rebels, via a ship that had been intercepted by the French navy. Before the issue was addressed by the Security Council, French and British forces invaded the Suez Canal in Egypt. The issue was transferred to the General Assembly, which ruled that France and the United Kingdom should withdraw from Egypt, as the United Nations found that the Egyptian supply of arms to Algeria did not warrant such retaliation. For France, Suez had mostly been about Algeria, and traditional narratives therefore argue that the Egyptian victory following the crisis bolstered the FLN's cause. In 2010, a series of anti-government protests arose across the Middle East and North Africa, becoming what is known as the Arab Spring. The pro-democracy protests led to the collapse of governments in Tunisia, Libya, Yemen and Egypt. The breakdown of authoritarian governments in the MENA region posed a series of problems to Europe and the United States. For example, the loss of former authoritarian allies, concerns that prices of oil would increase and a fear that an influx of illegal migrants would arrive in Europe from the Middle East. On January 25, 2011, a series of protests broke out in Cairo, demanding that President Hosni Mubarak leave office. Before the protests broke out, Mubarak was considered a close ally to the United States and Europe. The United States swayed its support between the Mubarak regime and the Egyptian people, before arguing that Mubarak should step down, a sentiment that was soon echoed by France, Germany, Britain, Italy and Spain. In an effort to promote cultural exchange, 2019 was declared the France-Egypt Cultural Year, celebrating the 150th anniversary of the opening of the Suez Canal and coinciding with French President Emmanuel Macron’s official visit to Egypt.