We publish a 5 September article from the French Socialist website La Riposte By David NOËL – Communist Party of France – Méricourt
*******
In Tunisia, the Tunisian General Labour Union (UGTT), the country’s main union, which contributed to the fall of the Ben Ali regime in 2011, is mobilising against the regime’s authoritarian drift.
President Kaïs Saïed, elected President of the Republic in October 2019, with broad popular support (72.7% of the vote), has gradually established an increasingly authoritarian and repressive regime.
In July 2021, he declared a state of emergency, froze and then dissolved parliament, and suspended the constitution. He was granted full powers and legalised his coup a year later by having a new constitution adopted in a referendum in which only 12% of voters participated.
Since 2021, the justice system has been brought into line: the High Council of the Judiciary has been dissolved, and judges deemed hostile to the government have been automatically transferred. Arrests of political opponents, magistrates, and journalists have increased.
Nearly forty opponents sentenced
In April 2025, nearly 40 Tunisian opposition figures were sentenced following a trial deemed unfair by Amnesty International:
“The first hearings (starting on March 4, 2025) took place without the physical presence of the accused, in violation of their right to be present at their trial. […] During the April 11 hearing, Tunisian and foreign journalists, as well as civil society observers, including Amnesty International, were denied access to the courtroom. […] The investigation relies on weak evidence: exchanges of messages about diplomatic meetings or internal discussions on peaceful opposition to the president. No tangible evidence of criminal activity or violent plans has been put forward publicly.”
The defendants, including Rached Ghannouchi (president of the Islamist Ennahdha party), Nejib Chebbi (leader of the National Salvation Front), as well as lawyers and human rights defenders, were found guilty of “conspiracy against state security” and “membership in a terrorist organization” and sentenced to prison terms ranging from 13 to 74 years.
The UGTT’s response
On August 7, the UGTT headquarters was attacked by supporters of Kaïs Saïed. President Saïed supported the attackers, who denounced alleged “corruption” within the union.
For the Tunisian League for Human Rights (LTDH), the demonstration against the UGTT was in reality an ” attempt to suppress free expression and weaken civic space through intimidation, defamation and distortion.”
The UGTT responded by calling for a march on Thursday, August 21, in defence of trade union freedoms and democracy, which brought together more than 2,000 members and supporters in the centre of Tunis, despite the massive mobilisation of police forces who prevented hundreds of Tunisians from joining the procession.
In a joint statement issued in support of the UGTT, the main French trade union organisations (the CFDT, CGT, UNSA, Solidaires, and FSU) strongly denounced
“the campaign of intimidation waged by the Tunisian authorities and expressed their solidarity with their counterparts in the UGTT.” In addition, the unions “called on the French government, and more broadly on European decision-makers, to condemn the autocratic excesses of the Kaïs Saïed regime and to denounce the EU-Tunisia memorandum .”
[featured image is the emblem of the Tunisian trade union – the UGTT, from wiki Commons here]
