Archives des Tunisia - mdi-international

Mosaic thinking — Carthage as a proof of concept!

Ghazi Ben Ahmed — Tue, 29 Sep 2026 14:55:10 +0000

In the face of divisions over French identity and fruitless debates on Islam, this essay proposes a third way. From Clitomachus to Youssef Seddik, via Augustine, Ibn Khaldun and Camus, it reinterprets the Maghreb and Mediterranean borderlands as the cradle of a mosaic-like way of thinking, useful for reflecting on our contemporary complexities.

I. Paris burns, London celebrates

On the evening of 30 May 2026, Paris Saint-Germain won the Champions League. A victory that should have been a national celebration: the second consecutive European title for a club at the peak of its powers. A few days earlier, in London, Arsenal had celebrated winning the English Premier League title after a twenty-year wait. Supporters had taken to the streets, drinking, singing and weeping with joy, before heading home. No cars were set alight. No smashed shop windows. No police charges. Elsewhere in Europe, in Poland, Wisła Kraków supporters also celebrated their club’s promotion in the streets of Kraków, in a lively, festive atmosphere without any major disturbances: no significant incidents, no scenes of chaos, none of that sense of a celebration immediately threatened by violence.

In Paris, the celebrations have turned into clashes. The Champs-Élysées has become a battlefield. Hundreds have been arrested, dozens injured, and the images are being seen around the world. Once again, the same question arises: why is France no longer able to celebrate its great victories without violence?

The answer is uncomfortable, because it forces us to face up to what the country often prefers to avoid. It is not merely a question of public safety; it is a question of social cohesion. It is not merely a question of hooliganism; it is a question of belonging. A section of French youth does not experience these victories as moments of national unity, but as opportunities to symbolically settle scores with a country in which they do not fully recognise themselves.

France is divided. And at the heart of this divide lies an issue that neither the left nor the right knows how to address honestly: that of Islam in France, its place in the national identity, and, even more profoundly, the narrative into which the millions of French people of Maghreb and Muslim heritage can fit.

The false debate

The usual response takes two equally fruitless forms.
On the one hand, the apologetic response: Islam is a religion of peace and tolerance; Muslims in France are citizens just like everyone else; stigmatisation is unfair. All of this is true, but politically insufficient. The far right will always respond with images of violence, cherry-picked statistics, and facts—whether real or fabricated. The battle for reputation is a lost cause for anyone seeking to defend Islam against its caricatures.

On the other hand, there is the repressive response: more checks, more surveillance, a tougher stance. Whilst this may sometimes address public order concerns, it does not resolve the underlying issues. On the contrary, it reinforces, amongst some young people in working-class neighbourhoods, the idea that their presence is perceived first and foremost as a threat.
Both these responses share the same flaw: they treat Islam in France as a problem to be managed rather than as a sense of belonging to be embedded within a shared history.

The third way

There is a third way, one that is more intellectually demanding and politically fruitful. It does not consist of convincing people that Islam is ‘acceptable’. It consists of showing that Islam, Christianity and Judaism share the same Mediterranean roots, a common historical depth, and ancient connections that predate modern categories of identity and transcend them.
Not Islam versus France. Not Islam tolerated by France. But Islam, Christianity and Judaism as three expressions of the same Mediterranean world, of which Carthage was, for centuries, one of the most fruitful testing grounds. It is this project to restore a shared memory that we refer to here as ‘mosaic thinking’.

The misguided argument

It may be argued that Carthage is too local an example to address crises as vast as those facing contemporary Islam. A young person from Clichy-sous-Bois will not automatically feel a connection to Clitomachus of Carthage. An Indonesian from Surabaya has no genealogical link to Carthage. Jihadism, Salafism and the divisions in the French suburbs stem from historical, social and theological dynamics on an entirely different scale.

The objection is correct in what it states, but mistaken in what it assumes. Mosaic thought does not claim to be a comprehensive cure for political Islam. It offers something more modest and more solid: a proof of concept. It reminds us, through actual history, that a certain way of living with plurality has existed, that it has produced major works, that it has spanned languages, religions and centuries, and that it can therefore once again become an intellectual resource.

Mosaic thought does not assert in the abstract that plurality is possible; it shows that it has already taken place.

II. What Braudel allows us to say

Fernand Braudel has shown that mountains, seas, roads and trade shape, over the long term, the ways in which people live, trade and think. Geography does not explain everything. It does not dictate ideas. But it creates frameworks of experience, constraints, flows, neighbourhoods and tensions that make certain forms of thought more likely.

It is in this spirit that we must understand Carthage: not as the source of an exportable doctrine, but as a historical centre where a certain way of inhabiting the Mediterranean world and of thinking about its complexity was developed.
Carthage is not a cause of ideas. It is a matrix of intellectual experiences.

This Braudelian perspective is crucial, as it allows us to reconcile two seemingly contradictory assertions: Carthage is unique, rooted in a specific geography, history, languages and proper names; yet it is universally instructive, because the structure of experience it reveals – plurality, circulation, conflict, hybridisation without fusion – is found elsewhere, in other forms.

III. Carthage as an epistemological laboratory

Why Carthage rather than Athens, Rome or Alexandria?

Because Carthage occupies a unique position. Founded by Phoenicians from Tyre in the 9th century BCE on Berber soil, it quickly became the major commercial and cultural hub of the western Mediterranean. Neither East nor West, neither Asia nor Europe, it was a point of tension and exchange between the worlds. It traded with the Greeks whilst resisting them, engaged in dialogue with Rome whilst challenging it, and coexisted with the Berber populations of the interior whilst integrating them.

This position creates a particular epistemological condition. Anyone thinking from the perspective of Carthage cannot easily take refuge in absolute certainty. They see too many competing truths being asserted with equal conviction. They therefore develop, through experience even before turning it into a doctrine, a tolerance for uncertainty.

This is the very heart of mosaic thought.

Like the mosaic itself – this art of assembled fragments – this way of thinking does not merge differences. It does not dissolve the tesserae into a uniform mass. It keeps them distinct, with their colour, their hardness, their origin, but arranges them in such a way as to produce an image that no single fragment contained on its own.

A mosaic is neither purity nor confusion. It is composition.

And it is here that Valéry’s phrase takes on its full significance. But Mediterranean light is not a light that homogenises. It does not blur the contours; it accentuates them. In this light, each tessera retains its own colour, its hardness, its origin. It is not the light of fusion, but that of clear distinction; the light that allows us to see, precisely, that the fragments are different, and that it is their combined difference that produces the image.

This is why mosaic thinking is not syncretism. It does not dissolve religions into a vague spirituality, languages into a cultural Esperanto, or identities into an abstract ‘Mediterranean-ness’. It keeps tensions visible. It works with contrasts rather than softening them.

IV. The tesserae: five figures of a constellation

Clitomachus of Carthage — The founding suspension

Clitomachus of Carthage, born Hasdrubal, arrived in Athens in the 2nd century BCE with an already solid philosophical grounding. A disciple of Carneades, he became the first non-Greek to head the Academy. His central contribution was the formalisation of epoché: the suspension of judgement in the face of that which one can neither affirm nor deny with certainty. But Clitomachus did not stop at scepticism. He demonstrated that one can act on the basis of probabilities without claiming to possess absolute truth. He thus established a lucid form of probabilism: neither dogmatism nor paralysis, but action amidst uncertainty. This stance stemmed from a man educated across multiple languages and systems of thought. For him, the suspension of judgement is not an intellectual retreat. It is a commitment to the complexity of reality. Clitomachus is the founding tessera: without him, the constellation has no centre of gravity.

Augustine of Hippo — Doubt as a Path to Inwardness

He has been made the Father of the Church, the theologian of grace. He is. But before that, Augustine was a Berber from Thagaste who passed through Manichaeism, Academic skepticism, Neoplatonism, and finally Christianity. This journey is not incidental: it is the very structure of his thought. The Confessions tell the story of a consciousness moving through contradictory truths, refusing to settle too early, keeping uncertainty open until an inner certainty imposes itself. For Augustine, truth does not arrive as an external dogmatic closure. It is sought within the very movement of the self. Augustine read and engaged with Academic skepticism; it is not enough, in itself, to establish a continuous tradition, but it shows that a textual circulation did indeed exist between ancient Carthaginian philosophy and North African Christian thought. He is the tessera that proves the constellation crosses centuries and confessions.

Ibn Khaldun — The Science of the Becoming of Civilizations

Ibn Khaldun was born in Tunis in the fourteenth century into an Andalusian family settled in North Africa. With the Muqaddimah, he founded a philosophy of history that rejects both simplistic providentialism and monocausal explanations. His notion of ‘asabiyya — social cohesion, group solidarity — speaks directly to the central question of every mosaic society: what holds disparate fragments together? The answer is not essence, but the bond. A civilization endures not because it is homogeneous, but because its groups are able, for a time, to produce a solidarity strong enough to transcend their divisions. Ibn Khaldun is the most political thinker in this constellation: he transforms the mosaic intuition into a science of historical becoming. He is the tessera without which the constellation remains philosophical without becoming political.

Albert Camus — The Absurd as a Modern Epoché

French Algerian, neither entirely European nor fully Algerian, raised in the poverty of Belcourt, trained in Greek philosophy by Jean Grenier, Camus thinks from a place of fracture. His notion of the absurd can be read as a modern reformulation of the epoché: faced with a world that does not answer the questions posed to it, he rejects resignation, nihilism, and the leap into an artificial certainty alike. One must imagine Sisyphus happy, not because his condition is a good one, but because lucidity is already a form of freedom. Camus adds an irreplaceable ethical dimension to mosaic thought: the refusal of false syntheses, dogmatic consolations, and narratives that resolve things too easily. In his work, plurality is no longer merely a historical condition; it becomes an ethic of measure.

Youssef Seddik — The Contemporary Link

A Tunisian philosopher and scholar of Islam, Youssef Seddik proposes a reading of the Qur’an as an open, polyphonic text, traversed by layers of meaning. He rejects both the literalism that freezes the text and the Orientalism that reduces its depth. His approach is a mosaic reading of Islam: it embraces layers, tensions, and openings, and keeps the text alive precisely because it refuses to imprison it. Seddik does not mechanically extend the thought of Clitomachus, Augustine, or Ibn Khaldun. But from the same historical space, he reactivates the same intellectual disposition: to think faith, text, and identity through plurality rather than against it. He is the tessera without which the constellation would remain in the past; the one who proves that this intellectual disposition is still alive, still possible, still necessary.

V. The Binding Agent: What Makes a Constellation

These figures do not constitute a school in the strict sense. They did not all read one another. They do not belong to a continuous and institutionalized tradition. What connects them, therefore, is not linear transmission, but recurrence: the recurrence of certain intellectual attitudes produced by the same kind of historical experience.

Four traits return with particular force.

First, the refusal of dogmatic closure. Clitomachus suspends judgment. Augustine seeks before he believes. Ibn Khaldun rejects simplistic explanations. Camus distrusts systems. Seddik keeps the text open.

Second, action under uncertainty. None of these thinkers is content merely to doubt. All seek a way of acting despite the instability of the world: Clitomachus’s probabilism, Augustine’s quest, Ibn Khaldun’s ‘asabiyya, Camus’s revolt are all responses to uncertainty.

Third, stratification as a source of richness. These thinkers do not seek to erase the layers that came before. Augustine carries within himself the Manichaean, the skeptic, and the Neoplatonist he once was. Camus carries Greece, France, and Algeria within himself. The mosaic does not melt down its tesserae; it arranges them.

Finally, measure against excess. Against fanaticism, nihilism, and immoderation, this constellation maintains a form of Mediterranean wisdom of limits. Not tepidness, but lucidity. Not resignation, but a refusal of murderous absolutes.

VI. The Real Reach: Local and Universal

Mosaic thought will not solve Indonesian jihadism, nor by itself answer the internal tensions of global Sunni theology, nor spontaneously transform a young person from a French banlieue. To claim otherwise would be a deception.

Its primary reach is local: to restore to Tunisians, Maghrebis, and, more broadly, North African societies a historical depth that has been confiscated from them twice.

First, by the colonial narrative, which instrumentalizes Augustine, turning him into a mere outpost of the West and erasing the specifically Berber contribution to universal thought. And second, by the Islamist narrative, which tends to make history begin with the Arab conquest of 647, as though everything that preceded it were insignificant or impure.

Mosaic thought proposes something else: a stratified identity rather than a besieged one. It recalls that this soil produced, before and after Islam, forms of thought of universal richness. It enables North African societies to think of themselves not as peripheries of the East or the West, but as historical centers of intellectual production.

Its universal reach is indirect. If Tunisia, and the Maghreb more broadly, rehabilitate this constellation and build upon it a coherent intellectual modernity, they may become a visible precedent. Not a model that can be mechanically exported, but a living demonstration: a Muslim and Mediterranean society can embrace its Islamic heritage without erasing its Christian, Jewish, Berber, Punic, Greek, and Roman layers. That is where its strength lies: not in proclaiming plurality, but in embodying it. And it is precisely this embodiment that is missing today, three thousand kilometers from Carthage.

VII. The Bridge: From Carthage to the Champs-Élysées

Those three thousand kilometers bring us back to the Champs-Élysées. Not by metaphor, but by logic. If the fracture visible in the streets of Paris on the evening of May 30 is a narrative fracture before it is a security fracture, then the question is not: how do we contain the violence? It is: what narrative can replace the one that is missing? That narrative will not come from Brussels or the Place Beauvau. If it comes at all, it will come from the ability of Mediterranean societies themselves to produce a genealogy worthy of them — historically true, intellectually demanding, and irreducible to the uses that both Salafism and the far right might make of it.

The problem of Islam in France is not merely security-related, social, or administrative. It is also narrative. Many young French people of North African or Muslim background today have access to little more than a poor and polarized range of identities.

On one side, Salafism offers them a clear genealogy: you belong to a pure, universal, thousand-year-old tradition, superior to national borders and social humiliations. Never mind that you are discriminated against, poorly housed, looked down upon: you are the heir to a civilization. This offer is powerful because it answers a real need: the need to belong to something greater than oneself.

On the other side, official republican Islam often puts forward a defensive, almost administrative narrative: prove your loyalty, reassure, condemn, apologize for existing. Between the closed genealogy of Salafism and the defensive integration of official Islam, there is a void.

Mosaic thought can help fill that void. It unfolds another genealogy: not pure, closed, and literalist, but plural, Mediterranean, and historically rooted. It says to a young French person of North African origin: your intellectual ancestors are not only the Companions of the Prophet or the jurists of Medina; they are also Augustine the Berber, Clitomachus the Carthaginian, Ibn Khaldun the Tunisian, Camus the Algerian. They thought from within a world of tensions, crossings, languages, and multiple faiths. They did not turn this into an identity wound, but into a philosophical strength.

This genealogy does not erase Islam. It places it within a longer, richer continuity, one that is more difficult for literalism to instrumentalize. It offers a form of belonging compatible with republican complexity.

Of course, a narrative does not eliminate unemployment, discrimination, racial profiling, or urban fractures. These realities demand political, social, and economic responses. But societies are held together not only by public policy. They are also held together by shared narratives.

A young person who sees himself as the heir to a closed and besieged tradition will more readily experience France as a foreign space. A young person who sees himself as the heir to a mosaic matrix — in which Islam stands alongside Berber Christianity, North African Judaism, Greek philosophy, and Mediterranean history — may more readily inscribe his French belonging within a depth that does not require him to amputate any part of himself.

This is not naïveté. It is cultural politics in the most serious sense of the term: the battle of narratives that precedes and conditions many other battles.

Why does this narrative not yet exist? Because no one has truly constructed it. Salafism has had access to funding, networks, mosques, satellite channels, and digital platforms. The French far right has an interest in keeping Islam in a position of permanent otherness. Republican elites, for their part, have too often reduced the question to the abstract defense of laïcité, without understanding that a nation is transmitted not only through principles, but also through a shared inheritance.

To rehabilitate mosaic thought, then, is to fill a narrative void with something true: names, places, dates, texts, a soil.

Carthage will not heal the Champs-Élysées in a single generation. But it can offer part of the French youth of North African origin something they are sorely lacking: a genealogy that is dignified, plural, and irreducibly Mediterranean.

VIII. Conclusion

The soil does not dictate ideas. But certain places create conditions of possibility for certain forms of thought. They offer a horizon of experiences, encounters, and shared problems that reappear, across the centuries, in authors who may otherwise seem profoundly different.

Carthage is one such place. Not the source of a single doctrine. Not a continuous tradition in the strict sense. A matrix: a historical locus in which, at several moments, a particular way of inhabiting Mediterranean plurality has been forged without turning it either into a wound or into dissolution.

Clitomachus, Augustine, Ibn Khaldun, Camus, and Seddik do not say the same thing. They do not constitute a school. But they draw a constellation: that of a form of thought that refuses dogmatic closure, embraces uncertainty, acts despite doubt, preserves the layers of identity, and seeks measure against excess.

This constellation is not a utopia. It has already produced works. It has crossed religions, languages, and centuries without becoming fixed within any one of them. That is precisely what utopias cannot say of themselves.

But a proof of concept becomes a political resource only on one condition: that we decide to transmit it. Salafism has had access to funding, networks, and platforms. The far right has an interest in keeping Islam in a position of permanent otherness. Between these two symmetrical enterprises of closure, mosaic thought has only what it has always had on its side: the truth of its soil, the richness of its names, and the quiet strength of things that have already happened.

The mosaic of Carthage is not waiting to be invented. It is waiting for those who will carry it forward.

L’article Mosaic thinking — Carthage as a proof of concept! est apparu en premier sur mdi-international.

5,500 Dinars to Live Decently, 554 Dinars to Survive

Ahmed Lagha — Wed, 17 Jun 2026 04:30:26 +0000

5,500 Tunisian dinars per month (equivalent to approximately 1,618 euros).

In 2026, this is the monthly wage – adjusted for inflation – that a Tunisian family comprising two parents and two children would need to live comfortably, without having to resort to a bank loan.

This was stated by the academic and economist Ridha Chkoundali on Jawhara FM radio on Tuesday 9 June, following studies that assessed the real cost of living in Tunisia, thereby highlighting the significant gap between a household’s actual income and its necessary daily expenditure.

5,500 dinars per month are required to cover the cost of living, compared with a Tunisian guaranteed minimum wage (SMIG) of 554 dinars per month. That is roughly 10 times the value of the SMIG: does this mean one would have to work 10 times as hard to reach a decent standard of living?

The answer is simple: no.

It is becoming increasingly clear that Tunisia’s trajectory regarding consumer credit is a cause for concern. Whilst inflation has finally stabilised to some extent since the post-Covid period, there is no guarantee that this trend will continue in the years to come. Rising energy prices or production costs could quickly reignite inflationary pressures.

“According to Ridha Chkoundali, the effects of the geopolitical crisis in the Middle East are not yet fully reflected in the current statistics. He stated, however, that Tunisia could face imported inflation in the coming months as a result of the disruptions affecting global energy and commodity markets.” (Business News)

The economist points out that a rise in energy costs in Europe will automatically feed through to production costs and fuel domestic inflation in the Tunisian economy, which is itself heavily dependent on imports of raw materials and other European products.

Against this backdrop, rising household debt, combined with a persistent erosion of purchasing power, risks becoming particularly dangerous for the country’s economic and social stability; it should also be noted that Tunisian purchasing power has fallen by 25 per cent over the last three years …

Sources: Jawhara FM, Business News, La Presse Tunisie, Tuniscope.com.

L’article 5,500 Dinars to Live Decently, 554 Dinars to Survive est apparu en premier sur mdi-international.

An Oil Shock Tunisia Cannot Absorb Without Structural Reforms

Ghazi Ben Ahmed — Mon, 30 Mar 2026 17:07:19 +0000

Brent crude settled at $79.45 on March 1 — before the strike on the Ras Tanura refinery operated by Saudi Aramco, before major shipping lines suspended transit through the Strait of Hormuz, and before mounting security alerts signaled that this narrow waterway – conduit for nearly one-fifth of global oil flows – had become a strategic flashpoint.

The price visible on trading screens reflects transactions already executed; it does not fully incorporate routes disrupted, insurance premiums recalculated, and supply chains placed under geopolitical constraint. Markets continue to treat oil primarily as a commodity. Yet in the Strait of Hormuz, it is increasingly subject to geopolitical leverage.

For Tunisia, this shift is not theoretical. It has direct macroeconomic consequences.

A Budget Assumption Under Strain

Tunisia’s 2026 Finance Law is built on an assumed average oil price of $63.3 per barrel. Current levels stand well above that reference. The deviation is economically significant.

Each additional dollar in the price of oil adds approximately 164 million dinars to compensation expenditures. This mechanism is automatic: higher import costs expand subsidy requirements, widening the fiscal deficit unless offset by higher revenues or expenditure restraint.

At $80 per barrel, fiscal pressure intensifies. At $90, adjustment becomes considerably more difficult. At $100, the budgetary impact is substantial and sustained.

Tunisia enters this phase with elevated public debt, rigid expenditure structures dominated by wages, subsidies, and debt servicing, and limited access to international capital markets. In such a configuration, the scope for discretionary counter-cyclical policy is structurally constrained.

Inflation Through Production and Imports

The oil shock extends beyond public finances. Energy is a core input in transport, electricity generation, agriculture, and manufacturing. Petroleum derivatives are embedded in plastics, packaging, fertilizers, and numerous industrial processes. Tunisia also imports finished goods from economies where energy prices are not subsidized, meaning higher oil prices are transmitted directly through import costs.

The consequence is imported inflation.

According to Capital Economics, a prolonged conflict pushing oil to $100 per barrel could add between 0.6 and 0.7 percentage points to global inflation. For Tunisia, such an increase would translate into higher consumer prices, further compressing purchasing power at a time when households are already adjusting to elevated living costs.

Inflation in this context is not merely a statistical outcome; it has distributive effects, disproportionately affecting lower- and middle-income households whose consumption baskets are more sensitive to energy and transport costs.

External Balances and Logistical Pressures

As a net importer of hydrocarbons, Tunisia’s trade balance is structurally sensitive to oil prices. A sustained rise in the energy bill deepens the current account deficit and places additional strain on foreign-exchange reserves; a key buffer for exchange-rate stability and external confidence.

Logistics compound this vulnerability. Maritime insurance premiums have increased amid instability affecting transit routes, particularly through the Suez Canal. Rerouting and security surcharges raise freight costs, affecting both consumer goods and intermediate inputs used in domestic production.

Meanwhile, JPMorgan Chase has noted that dozens of empty oil tankers are currently waiting near the Gulf region. Storage capacity in producing countries is limited to only a few days of output. Should disruptions persist, logistical bottlenecks could evolve into production constraints, reinforcing upward pressure on prices and prolonging market tightness.

Under such conditions, what begins as volatility risks becoming structural imbalance.

A Dual Shock in a Constrained Policy Environment

The present oil surge constitutes a dual shock for Tunisia:

Fiscal, through rising compensation costs and widening deficits;
Economic, through imported inflation, higher production expenses, and increased transport costs.

These channels interact. Larger subsidies expand borrowing needs; higher import bills weaken external balances; inflation erodes real incomes; slower growth limits revenue mobilization. The cumulative effect narrows policy options further.

Tunisia’s vulnerability is structural. The economy remains heavily dependent on imported hydrocarbons to sustain transport, electricity generation, and industry. Export diversification remains limited, and foreign-currency earnings are insufficient to offset large energy import bills. Fiscal rigidities reduce flexibility precisely when flexibility is most needed.

Without structural reform – including accelerated investment in renewable energy, improved energy efficiency, enhanced export competitiveness, and a credible medium-term fiscal consolidation strategy – exposure to external energy shocks will persist.

Regional Context, Asymmetric Exposure

Tunisia is not alone in its sensitivity to oil prices. Morocco, also a net oil importer, faces similar exposure to prolonged price increases and imported inflation.

By contrast, Algeria, as a hydrocarbon exporter, benefits from higher prices in the short term. Yet its fiscal and external balances remain closely tied to energy revenues, and regional instability carries its own financial and security risks. Energy shocks reshape North African macroeconomic dynamics, albeit asymmetrically.

A Narrow Margin for Absorption

The Strait of Hormuz lies far from Tunis geographically, but its stability influences Tunisia’s fiscal trajectory, inflation path, reserve adequacy, and growth outlook. In an interconnected energy system, distance offers no insulation.

If oil prices stabilize quickly, Tunisia will face a demanding but manageable adjustment. If elevated prices persist, the convergence of fiscal expansion, external deterioration, and inflationary pressure could significantly constrain macroeconomic stability.

In this context, the gravest risk is not simply fiscal slippage or higher inflation, but a broader breakdown of economic stability; one that could weaken the dinar, exhaust foreign-exchange reserves, and trigger acute shortages. Such a configuration would not remain confined to macroeconomic indicators; it would carry profound social and political consequences in a country where economic strain has historically translated into systemic upheaval.

A further vulnerability lies in Tunisia’s increasingly constrained diplomatic positioning. External financial support cannot be assumed. In previous crises, Gulf countries provided liquidity backstops or budgetary assistance. Today, geopolitical alignments are more fragmented, and Tunisia’s ambiguous positioning in regional tensions may reduce the likelihood of rapid financial relief from traditional partners.

Should regional polarization intensify, economic repercussions could extend beyond capital flows. Labor mobility, remittance channels, and bilateral economic ties may become exposed to political recalibration. For countries such as Tunisia and Algeria, whose citizens maintain economic linkages across the Gulf, the risk is not only financial but also socio-economic.

In such a scenario and to conclude, the convergence of constrained external financing, accelerating dinar depreciation, reserve exhaustion, entrenched inflation, and disrupted remittance inflows would not merely intensify macroeconomic stress; it could transform what is currently treated as speculative risk into the premature unraveling of an already fragile economic system. An economy structurally dependent on external financing, weak in productive diversification, and unable to generate sustained growth or macroeconomic stability cannot indefinitely absorb cumulative shocks.

Under prolonged pressure, the outcome would not be a cyclical adjustment, but the materialization of a risk long feared yet seldom articulated: that sustained economic breakdown could once again trigger systemic political rupture. If left unaddressed, the consequences may extend beyond institutional instability to social fragmentation and lasting damage to the state itself. The question is no longer whether reform is necessary, but whether there is still time to act.

L’article An Oil Shock Tunisia Cannot Absorb Without Structural Reforms est apparu en premier sur mdi-international.

Happy New Year 2026 from the MDI team!

Ghazi Ben Ahmed — Mon, 30 Mar 2026 16:54:41 +0000

Dear fellow citizens, devoted patriots,

As we enter the new year of 2026, my dearest wish is for the salvation of our homeland.

Tunisia stands at a crossroads: we must, above all, save it from bankruptcy, but also rid it of the poison of hatred and polarisation that divides us.

The Tunisian people deserve infinitely better than what they are enduring today. It is unacceptable that a people with a thousand-year-old heritage should be reduced to suffering the humiliation of shortages, the scourge of mass unemployment and the blight of pollution that chokes our cities. Let us finally choose practical action over sterile ideology. The recovery of our economy must no longer be a campaign promise, but our sole and only guiding principle.

Our vision is of a bold and competitive Tunisia. We have talents shining all over the world; it is time to create the conditions for them to build here, at home. We call for an economic revolution based on innovation, the energy transition and the unleashing of initiative.

Let us spare a special thought for our regions, such as Gabès, where the environment and the health of our fellow citizens have for too long been sacrificed on the altar of neglect. Environmental justice is the foundation of dignity. Let us stop diverting regional wealth; let us finally devote it to the priority development of those who produce and protect it.

Now is the time for unity and absolute autonomy.

Tunisia must no longer beg for its bread or sell off its sovereignty to anyone. We emphatically state that our country is not for sale and that its security cannot be delegated: our sovereignty will never be surrendered to Algerian interests or to any foreign power. Let us rely on our own strengths, on our creative genius and on unwavering solidarity with the most vulnerable. We will leave no one by the wayside.

The economic solutions to create wealth and decent jobs for all Tunisians are well known and within our grasp. We possess the necessary skills and our own resources to implement these solutions, so that we may seize our independence with our own hands. We no longer need to remain at the mercy of any country, nor wait for ‘aid’ that condemns us to live forever in the submission and humiliation of dependence.

We must choose our dignity, our ambition and genuine solidarity. Enough of empty slogans, and enough of this rhetoric of “toxic fraternity” which has brought us nothing but alienation. The time has come to stand shoulder to shoulder and rebuild our country, together.

May 2026 be the year of restored sovereignty, economic excellence and social justice. Let us make this the year in which Tunisia stops suffering and starts building again.

Long live Tunisia, free, prosperous and proud!

L’article Happy New Year 2026 from the MDI team! est apparu en premier sur mdi-international.

Clitomachus of Carthage, the Tunisian philosopher our Republic needs!

Ghazi Ben Ahmed — Thu, 04 Dec 2025 19:52:59 +0000

Since independence, Tunisia has continuously sought to define the contours of an identity that is truly its own—both freed from the weight of colonial domination and liberated from reductive interpretations. The notion of “Tunisianity” belongs to this quest: not a single Arab-Muslim identity, but the heritage of a long historical layering in which Berbers, Punics, Romans, Christians, Arabs and other Mediterranean peoples have, successively or simultaneously, shaped this land.

Habib Bourguiba himself embodied this ambivalence. In the early years of independence, he favoured a unifying discourse centred on Arab-Muslim belonging, even distancing the Amazigh dimension, which he perceived as a potential threat to national unity. Yet, at the same time, he was profoundly aware of the richness of Tunisia’s ancient past and did not hesitate to symbolically place himself in the lineage of figures such as Hannibal or Saint Augustine. It is from this plural historical foundation that he paradoxically helped forge the basis of a modern Tunisianity: rooted in its historical depth, yet open to the Mediterranean and the wider world.

It is within this intellectual continuity that it becomes both relevant and necessary today to consider the integration of Clitomachus of Carthage into the Tunisian pantheon.

Clitomachus of Carthage: a Carthaginian at the heart of ancient philosophy

Clitomachus of Carthage, whose Carthaginian name was Hasdrubal, is one of the most fascinating yet most overlooked figures of ancient philosophy. Born in Carthage around 187 BC, he left his native city for Athens after the destruction of Carthage, where he became a disciple of Carneades and, later, the head of the New Academy.

His work forms part of the tradition of Academic scepticism, in opposition to the dogmatism of the Stoics and the Epicureans. Clitomachus rejected the idea of absolute certainty and proposed that our judgements be founded on what is probable rather than what is certain. After the death of Carneades, he did not merely defend his master’s ideas: he deepened, organised and extended them, giving Academic scepticism its most accomplished form.

None of his writings has survived directly, yet his influence permeates Greco-Roman philosophy, notably through the works of Cicero. Clitomachus thus embodies an erudite ancient Tunisia—discreet, yet essential to the history of universal thought.

A philosophy of the probable for a world of uncertainty

Clitomachus’s thought rests on two pillars:

the rejection of absolute certainty;
the adoption of probability as a criterion for judgement and action.

For him, our perceptions and reasoning are always susceptible to error. Unlike the Stoics, who believed that completely reliable knowledge was attainable, Clitomachus held that we can never reach such a level of certainty.

Confronted with this fragility, he did not advocate withdrawal from the world, but rather an art of decision-making amid uncertainty. He distinguished several degrees of probability—simple, confirmed, then confirmed and coherent—which allow one to act without falling into dogmatism. What matters is not “knowing once and for all”, but accepting that our judgements must be continually reassessed in light of new information.

Clitomachus thus stands at the heart of an ancient debate—between fate and freedom, certainty and doubt—which resonates with particular force today. His critique of Stoic fatalism and of the astrological beliefs of his time echoes our contemporary struggles against conspiratorial narratives, mass disinformation and ready-made truths.

Formulated more than two thousand years ago, his principles speak to our era saturated with information and rumours:

beware of easy certainties;
accept uncertainty as a normal condition;
act on the basis of what is most probable, without claiming to possess ultimate truth.

Clitomachus’s probabilistic scepticism is not a philosophy of paralysis, but a school of vigilance, prudence and responsibility.

A missing pillar of the Tunisian pantheon

In the Council of Ministers’ chamber at the Carthage Palace, the Tunisian president placed, like four sentinels of Tunisianity, the tutelary figures watching over the young Republic: Hannibal the strategist, Jugurtha the resister, Ibn Khaldun the thinker, and above all Saint Augustine, the Carthaginian who managed to hold together faith and reason.

But this pantheon still lacks a purely philosophical figure, born of its soil, embodying the strength of critical thought and rational dialogue: Clitomachus. His philosophy reminds us that the search for truth is a path, not a fixed block; that it requires doubt, the confrontation of arguments, and the refusal of overly simple answers.

In a world where truth often seems elusive, where extremist narratives and media manipulation proliferate, Clitomachus offers us a precious antidote:

constructive doubt rather than cynicism;
enlightened inquiry rather than blind belief;
reasonable probability rather than fanatical certainty.

Just as fruitful connections were once drawn between Saint Augustine and Plato, Clitomachus can extend another synthesis: that of faith, reason and rational inquiry—an integral part of the Mediterranean’s deeper identity. To add him to the Tunisian pantheon would be to assert loudly that Tunisia is defined not only by the sword or dogma, but also by the mind, debate, enlightened doubt and the pursuit of truth.

An act of cultural reappropriation

Far from representing an inward-looking identity claim, the recognition of Clitomachus would strengthen the image of Tunisia as a crossroads of civilisations—open and conscious of the richness of its past. It would in fact extend Bourguiba’s most fertile intuition: to situate Tunisia not within a narrow identity, but within a plural, Mediterranean and universalist historical continuity.

Granting Clitomachus an explicit place within the Tunisian pantheon would be an essential gesture of cultural reappropriation. It would amount to affirming that critical thought, philosophy and knowledge are not merely imported from elsewhere: they were also produced here, in Carthage, by a Tunisian before the word existed.

Such a gesture would help rebalance a Tunisian collective imagination too often turned towards external references, even though Tunisia possesses an immense, under-exploited intellectual heritage of its own. Instead of citing only the poets of the jāhiliyya or distant figures, it would mean placing at the centre our own thinkers, our own sages—those who spoke from this land.

Restoring Clitomachus and other Carthaginian or Mediterranean figures to our symbolic horizon does not fragment the nation; on the contrary, it reconfigures our past in the sense described by Paul Ricoeur: changing the meaning of that past by rereading it differently. It is not about resurrecting rival identities, but about stitching back together what has been torn apart: recreating a common narrative, strengthening the sense of belonging and fostering a deeper cohesion among Tunisians, united around a plural history that is fully assumed and fully claimed. Only under these conditions will we be able to face together the challenges of development and finally offer young people a future worthy of their aspirations.

Translated from the article written in French on the Tunisian media outlet Business News.

L’article Clitomachus of Carthage, the Tunisian philosopher our Republic needs! est apparu en premier sur mdi-international.

“America First” Meets Tunisia: Trump’s Next Strategic Investment Move

Ghazi Ben Ahmed — Wed, 06 Aug 2025 18:17:19 +0000

As the populist chapter of Kaïs Saied’s rule nears its end, and his throne begins to wobble under the weight of a desperate and disillusioned population, Tunisia stands at a pivotal crossroads. Though re-elected in the contested October 2024 elections, Saied emerges politically diminished, his domestic legitimacy eroded, and his international isolation deepening. Rather than charting a new course, he clings to symbolic gestures and ideological posturing.

His recent meeting with Trump senior adviser for Africa, Massad Boulos, exemplified this drift. Marketed as a sovereign pivot, it instead revealed a president on the defensive, exploiting the tragedy in Gaza to flatter his base by humiliating the American envoy. The performance, intended to project strength, instead laid bare the regime’s fragility — revealing a president increasingly detached from political reality and blind to the country’s pressing economic crises.

Behind Saied’s rhetoric of “diversification” lies no coherent economic vision. China, despite being touted as an alternative, supports IMF-backed reforms and shows little interest in a high-risk partnership. Russia is crippled by war and sanctions; Iran offers ideology, not investment. These alignments do not serve the Tunisian people, they serve a regime in search of legitimacy, propped up by authoritarian allies willing to turn a blind eye.

What is presented as sovereign diplomacy is, in reality, an empty last stand, a clumsy performance aimed at the United States, a power Kaïs Saied openly despises and deeply fears, in a desperate attempt to cling to power and deflect attention from his failures under the guise of anti-imperialist bravado.

A new future is possible

Today, Tunisia is ready to turn the page on a troubled chapter marked by economic stagnation, political instability, and diminished freedoms.

The nation finds itself at a crossroads, presented with a historic opportunity to reshape its future and reassert its role as a dynamic and influential player in the global economy. Healthcare, in particular, offers a strategic avenue for growth, positioning Tunisia as a potential regional hub of medical excellence. By drawing inspiration from Singapore’s model, the country could attract world-class investment and expertise, particularly from the United States. However, seizing this opportunity will require Tunisia to carefully navigate the complexities of its forthcoming transition and avoid repeating the missteps of the past.

A Multi-Billion-Dollar Opportunity for U.S. Firms

Tunisia is uniquely positioned to emerge as a premier medical hub in the Mediterranean region, driven by its advanced private healthcare infrastructure, highly competitive operational costs, and strategic geographic location, conveniently accessible from both Europe and Africa. By attracting European patients who seek not only cost-effective and high-quality medical care but also timely treatment unavailable due to extensive waiting lists in their home countries, Tunisia stands to substantially boost its economy, effectively address the increasing demand for prompt medical services, and significantly enhance its international standing as a trusted healthcare destination.

Healthcare spending in Europe has been increasing steadily, reaching 1,35 trillion euros in 2024. Given that approximately 20%-30% of this expenditure involves elective procedures, Tunisia stands to gain access to a market exceeding €100 billion annually by capturing even a modest 10% share.

In this context, U.S. companies and healthcare providers are poised to seize a multi-billion-dollar opportunity by developing hospitals, clinics, and training centers that serve European and African patients. Furthermore, these investments would strengthen U.S.-Tunisia relations, amplifying American influence in the Mediterranean region and ensuring Tunisia remains aligned with the U.S. rather than drifting eastward into the embrace of Iran or Russia. Yet, troubling signs already loom on the horizon: since June 15, 2024, Iranians have enjoyed visa-free entry into Tunisia, quietly planting seeds of influence whose bitter harvest we may soon reap. This policy is part of a broader strategy by Kais Saied to deepen political, trade, and cultural ties with the Iranian regime, a move that raises serious concerns about the geopolitical and domestic ramifications of aligning Tunisia with such a repressive and destabilizing force.

Simultaneously, Russia, freshly expelled from Syria, actively searches for fertile ground upon which to anchor a new naval base—its eyes now set firmly upon Tunisia’s strategic shores.

Amid growing geopolitical threats, Tunisia has a brief but critical window to redefine its path. The post-populist transition will be crucial, as any delay risks missed opportunities and increased external vulnerability.

Positioning Tunisia as a premier medical hub could serve as a cornerstone of this transition. By addressing critical regulatory and logistical hurdles in the healthcare sector, Tunisia can attract world-class investment and expertise. Crafting comprehensive bilateral agreements with key European countries would streamline reimbursement processes, facilitate patient mobility, and ensure alignment with EU medical standards. Additionally, adopting successful models such as partnerships between American healthcare giants like Johns Hopkins or Mayo Clinic and medical hubs in the UAE or Singapore could reduce European skepticism toward healthcare services outside the EU.

A crucial two-year transition

With Tunisia nearing the end of a turbulent political cycle, the country will require a two-year transition to lay the groundwork for credible reforms and renewed investor confidence—delivering quick wins while shaping a long-term economic strategy.

While healthcare holds long-term promise, Tunisia’s immediate gains lie in its rich phosphate reserves, military collaboration, tourism and real estate opportunities, energy projects, and active regional diplomacy.

Notably, phosphate, though not currently on the U.S. Geological Survey’s Critical Minerals List, is gaining attention, with industry groups like The Fertilizer Institute pushing for its inclusion. Its crucial role in American agriculture aligns with the “America First” agenda, offering quick wins for the Trump administration while boosting Tunisia’s stability and economy.

Tunisia could attract U.S. investments by mirroring Singapore’s stability, infrastructure, and pro-business policies, but it must first tackle corruption, bureaucracy, and instability. That will be among the objectives of Tunisia’s post-populist two-year transition. Initiatives such as special investment zones offering streamlined regulations and incentives could create immediate economic momentum.

To further reassure American investors, and shield itself from hostile neighbors, Tunisia should also replicate Singapore’s nuanced strategy of protecting investments through robust legal guarantees, economic alignment, and a carefully balanced strategic military presence—one that stops short of a full U.S. military base but still signals security and reliability. Tunisian success stories would act as powerful driver for expanding American influence and economic interests into Libya and across the Region.

L’article “America First” Meets Tunisia: Trump’s Next Strategic Investment Move est apparu en premier sur mdi-international.

Morocco and the Reform of the Moudawana

Ahmed Lagha — Sat, 04 Jan 2025 20:56:00 +0000

The Moudawana, or Moroccan Personal Status Code, is a set of laws governing personal status issues, including marriage, divorce, child custody, inheritance, and family relations in Morocco. Playing a central role in regulating the rights and duties of family members, it was first adopted in 1957/58, following Morocco’s independence.

The Moudawana long reflected a traditional and patriarchal vision of society. However, growing criticism over gender inequality and insufficient protection of women’s rights led to a major revision in 2004, spearheaded by King Mohammed VI, who aimed to safeguard women’s rights while respecting Islamic principles.

The 2004 reform introduced key changes: equality between spouses, raising the legal marriage age from 15 to 18, stricter regulation of polygamy, allowing women to file for divorce under specific circumstances, and reforms in child custody and inheritance.

In late 2024, another revision to the Moudawana brought additional reforms: Moroccan women can now be legal guardians of their children (retaining custody even after remarriage), couples can divorce amicably without court intervention, and wives can prohibit polygamy at the time of marriage.

However, the lack of parity in inheritance laws remains a critical issue, mirroring the situation in Tunisia and serving as a significant obstacle to progressive societal evolution in North Africa.

In Tunisia, for instance, former President Beji Caid Essebsi proposed a historic reform in 2018 to establish gender equality in inheritance. This initiative was part of his broader project to modernize women’s rights and aligned with Tunisia’s progressive legacy in gender equality. Yet, discussions around these legislative proposals remain unresolved.

The fight for more progressive North African societies is far from over, but the efforts made in our time are far from insignificant.

L’article Morocco and the Reform of the Moudawana est apparu en premier sur mdi-international.

Transactionally Yours: The EU and Tunisia Confront Their Own Contradictions

Ahmed Lagha — Sun, 17 Nov 2024 19:32:17 +0000

October 29-30, 2024, will mark the resumption of negotiations between Tunisia and the European Union, represented by the Directorate-General for Neighbourhood and Enlargement Negotiations (DG Near, managing the Tunisia dossier and holding the purse strings) and the European External Action Service (EEAS, responsible for policy direction). This meeting in Tunis, the first during Kaïs Saïed’s second term, aims to discuss the details of implementing the migration memorandum signed on July 16, 2023.

To better grasp the stakes of this meeting, it is crucial to demystify the narratives underlying EU-Tunisia relations. On one side, the EU justifies its transactional strategy as an effort to stabilize Tunisia and prevent it from pivoting toward geopolitical adversaries like Russia and China (implicitly due to a lack of European cooperation). On the other, Tunisian President Kaïs Saïed portrays himself to supporters as a staunch defender of national sovereignty, publicly rejecting the role of Europe’s “coastguard” while discreetly cooperating at a minimal level with European entities like Frontex to stop migrants from heading to Europe, rescue them at sea, and facilitate their repatriation.

However, this limited cooperation does not satisfy the Europeans, who are desperately seeking to intensify collaboration by proposing the establishment of readmission hubs with their partners. A growing idea is the creation of dedicated return centers outside the Schengen area, in third countries. For the EU27, the objective is clear: accelerate deportations at any cost, with little regard for ethical concerns. This tightening of readmission mechanisms reflects Europe’s frenzy to strengthen its migration policies, increasingly outsourcing management to partner countries like Tunisia, now central to this strategy.

In Tunisia’s current context, marked by a severe economic crisis, this initiative could represent an opportunity to replenish the country’s desperately empty state coffers. The critical question is: how far can Kaïs Saïed maintain his sovereignty rhetoric in the face of European demands? Will he be forced to accept transactional compromises to save the country’s economy? This question is even more pressing for the Europeans as it arises against the backdrop of recent failures in British and Italian projects to outsource asylum-seeker management to Rwanda and Albania, respectively.

Nevertheless, this transactional approach carries significant risks. By supporting an increasingly authoritarian regime, the EU risks complicity in human rights abuses intensifying under Saïed’s presidency, thereby undermining its own legitimacy as a defender of democratic values.

Faced with an authoritarian drift in Tunisia, the EU treads an increasingly unsustainable tightrope, oscillating between a minimal facade of respect for democratic principles and the need to maintain functional relations with a key partner in security and migration management. This precarious stance is further strained by investigations, such as those by The Guardian, alleging severe abuses by EU-funded Tunisian security forces, including sexual violence and flagrant human rights violations against migrants (officially denied by Tunisia). Pressure is mounting for Brussels to account for its knowledge of these abuses and outline corrective measures, even as EU funds continue to support this repressive regime. Moreover, DG Near reportedly anticipated such abuses in an internal note that was later buried.

Transactionally Yours: A Bluffing Game

Ultimately, the fate of these negotiations will depend on Kaïs Saïed’s ability to balance his political ambitions with Tunisia’s immediate needs, particularly securing direct budgetary support and an EU loan without IMF conditions, as promised by Giorgia Meloni. Having already accepted the role of Europe’s border guard during the Memorandum’s signing in July 2023, Saïed is likely to go even further this time, buying time to secure financial relief while advancing his rapprochement with the BRICS, particularly Russia. Migration, the sole remaining link between Saïed and a Europe he constantly criticizes, once again becomes the linchpin of a compromise, muting his anti-Western rhetoric and defiance of perceived diktats.

Meanwhile, Europe, consumed by the urgency of migration challenges, seems ready to abandon a core pillar of the 1957 Treaty of Rome, which initiated development cooperation, and current treaties such as the Treaty on European Union (Article 21) and the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (Article 208). These treaties define principles aimed at reducing poverty and promoting sustainable development. The cooperation budget is now redirected toward a securitized and repressive day-to-day management of migration. This philosophical shift is aptly summarized by a tweet from French Minister for European Affairs Benjamin Haddad on October 24, 2024: “Time for realism. Europe must stop seeing itself as a vast market or an NGO defending universal values and instead think of itself as a political entity with its own economic and security interests.”

However, reducing Europe solely to economic and security realism forgets that its strength lies in the balance between market, security, and universal values. If Europe abandons its defense of human rights and solidarity principles, it will lose not only its soul but also the influence that allows it to build partnerships based on trust and respect. Viewing Europe merely as a cold political entity risks a reductive vision, distancing it from what has made it successful and differentiates it from countries like Putin’s Russia.

Ultimately, these negotiations resemble a high-stakes poker game where both sides strategically advance their interests, concealing true intentions behind official statements. Europe, fixated on managing migration and driven by pressure amplified by far-right parties exploiting the issue for political gain, and Tunisia, economically strangled, are engaged in a game where pragmatic interests outweigh declared principles. Alarmist rhetoric about migrants primarily serves domestic political objectives, distracting from real issues and reinforcing a transactional approach at the expense of democratic values and human rights. Behind the facade of cooperation, power dynamics and economic survival dictate the actions of both parties, far from the proclaimed ideals of sovereignty and democratic values.

This article was posted and translated by Ahmed Lagha but was originally written by Maxence Vanhille for the Tunisian digital newspaper Business News in French.

L’article Transactionally Yours: The EU and Tunisia Confront Their Own Contradictions est apparu en premier sur mdi-international.

“Echoes from Tunisia: Populism, Transition, and Hopes for Democracy” – Ghazi Ben Ahmed Releases His New Book on Tunisia

Ghazi Ben Ahmed — Fri, 20 Sep 2024 22:21:08 +0000

Echoes from Tunisia, Populism, Transition, and Hopes for Democracy (Ed. L’Harmattan, release date: 23 september 2024). I firmly believe that the (controversial) presidential elections in Tunisia provide an opportunity to assess the state of the country and the record of President Kaïs Saïed, who holds all powers. What are his achievements? What is the added value of this hyper-presidency? With what results is candidate Kaïs Saïed presenting himself to the people?

My book is an opportunity to open this debate, but beyond that, it is much more than just a political essay. It is a committed, rigorous, and nuanced work that offers a deep and objective analysis of Tunisia’s internal dynamics while connecting them to global transformations. It is essential not only for Tunisians seeking to understand the challenges their country faces but also for Europeans wanting to grasp the complex interactions between migration, populism, and international relations.

In summary, this book is an indispensable tool for anyone wishing to understand the crucial issues of today’s world, whether in politics, economics, or geopolitics. Tunisia, at the crossroads between its past, its tumultuous present, and its future aspirations, is revealed in all its complexity through these pages. It is a must-read for anyone who seeks to better understand our times and the challenges that lie ahead.

L’Harmattan also provides us with a summary of the contents of the book by Ghazi Ben Ahmed, founder of Mediterranean Development Initiative, on the back cover: “This book offers a hard-hitting analysis of the political and socio-economic crisis in Tunisia, exploring its genesis and its repercussions on Europe. As populist President Kais Saied consolidates his authoritarian rule, the situation extends far beyond Tunisia’s borders, leading to increased migration to Europe and fuelling populist and far-right rhetoric.

The book also highlights the decisive role of European policies, particularly Italian, in consolidating this authoritarian regime, a particularly crucial issue with the arrival of a new European executive. It also highlights the European Union’s lack of a long-term vision for Tunisia, and the recycling of its existing policies, which often limit the potential of relations between the two shores. By revealing these interconnections, this book invites reflection on the future of Euro-Mediterranean relations and the impact of these policy choices on the stability of Europe and its southern neighbourhood. It hopes to inspire greater understanding and cooperation between Tunisia and the European Union, for the mutual benefit of all concerned.”

The book by our founder Ghazi Ben Ahmed is available for pre-order on the Harmattan website in French ONLY. It will be published on 23 September. The price is 27 euros (+ postage).

L’article “Echoes from Tunisia: Populism, Transition, and Hopes for Democracy” – Ghazi Ben Ahmed Releases His New Book on Tunisia est apparu en premier sur mdi-international.

The Repayment of Tunisia’s Debt: A Never-Ending Trap?

Ahmed Lagha — Wed, 28 Aug 2024 14:02:17 +0000

“I say it loud and clear to the entire world: we will bow only before Almighty God. In the Quran, there is no surah named after the International Monetary Fund!” This is how Tunisian President Kaïs Saïed expressed his vision of a sovereign and independent Tunisia during a visit to Redeyef, near the Algerian border.

However, these words are out of step with reality. While the president portrayed himself as a defender of a self-sufficient Tunisia, his ministers were busy seeking loans from foreign banks and countries to secure vital funds for an economy on the brink of collapse.

These loans, although necessary, have led to drastic economic reforms that have resulted in significant food shortages and fueled popular discontent. The first measure was the removal of subsidies on basic food products, a decision that caused shortages, particularly of durum wheat, soft wheat, and vegetable oils, and led to a 64% drop in the trade balance in November 2023. These subsidies, established during Bourguiba’s era, were abruptly ended without proper preparation, exacerbating the situation.

Even though Tunisia no longer relies on the IMF, it has taken out loans from countries across three continents. In this way, it borrowed €810.5 million from Europe and received $1.62 billion from international, African, Arab, and Asian financial institutions over the past two years.

On July 2, 2024, Finance Minister Sihem Namsia announced that Tunisia had repaid all its domestic and foreign debt services for 2023, an amount of approximately $2.7 billion, which the government presented as a success. But this “success” was achieved at the cost of massive borrowing, further worsening the country’s economic and social situation.

Tunisians, facing shortages of basic necessities, endure scenes of endless queues to obtain rice, sugar, or flour. These shortages and the general impoverishment have fueled growing anger.

And now? Inflation remains unchecked, the dinar continues to depreciate against the euro, and economic growth is almost non-existent. Faced with these challenges, it is imperative to find solutions before future generations are left to pay the price for today’s mistakes, often exploited for electoral purposes.

This article was strongly inspired by the story published by the Tunisian media outlet Nawaat on 22 August 2024.

L’article The Repayment of Tunisia’s Debt: A Never-Ending Trap? est apparu en premier sur mdi-international.