Tunisia: Rise in protests shows ‘explosive’ discontent in the country
On 6 February, 26-year old Ahmed Khlifi was filmed by his friend as he walked into a police station in Sousse, a port city in eastern Tunisia, with a plastic bottle in his hand.
A few seconds later, loud screams could be heard from inside the building, while fire engulfed the door. Ahmed had set himself on fire, to protest alleged police harassment and mistreatments. He died soon after.
A few days later, 13-year-old Senda El Rjaibi decided to end her life by immolating herself inside her school, near Kasserine, one of Tunisia’s poorest regions.
That same week, two middle-aged men also lit themselves on fire inside public institutions. In early March, a school guard self-immolated, allegedly because of conflicts with his supervisor.
Hospitals, tribunals, city halls and even schools have recently witnessed similar self-immolations, leading most of the victims to die from their severe wounds.
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In Sousse, protests erupted over Ahmed’s death. His friend was arrested, accused of assisting the young man in taking his own life and inciting arson.
No investigation was officially opened into any of the incidents to determine underlying reasons.
Instead, conspiracy theories soon arose among followers of President Kais Saied, accusing the victims of being foreign agents “ready to burn the country for their own interests”, as MP Syrine Mrabet said.
Most of the victims of self-immolation are unemployed young men from the working class, according to a study by Mehdi Ben Khelil et al., comparing the trend before and after the 2011 revolution.
Following Mohamed Bouazizi’s self-immolation in December 2010, which ignited the Tunisian protests that led to the fall of long-time autocrat Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, this kind of suicide increasingly occurred in public places and administrations.
“The main motives also changed with more cases due to financial problems and conflicts with a state representative,” according to the authors.
Unemployed graduates heading protests
At the same time, protests have skyrocketed in Tunisia in recent weeks, with a 140 percent increase in February compared to the same period last year. All over the country, people organised to criticise deteriorating socioeconomic conditions.
Following a deadly car accident on 18 February, spontaneous protests and a general strike erupted in Gafsa, a region in the south-east that has been marginalised despite its rich phosphate resources.
‘It makes me feel depressed to see people who got their job through corruption and clientelism work when we do not’
- Afef Amami, unemployed graduate
That led to the creation of a social movement denouncing crumbling infrastructure and unequal regional development.
Some of the slogans chanted by the protesters - “work, freedom, social justice” and “exhaustion in the mines, money in the capitals”- echoed those of the 2011 revolution.
Elsewhere in the country, various protest movements appeared to demand socioeconomic improvements, including by school supervisors and substitute teachers.
One of the most organised movements has been that of the unemployed graduates, who have protested in dozens of cities throughout the country.
Afef Amami took part in the movement in 2019. The young woman graduated in 2007 with a Master’s degree in finance and administration. Over the next three years, she took more than 15 national exams in the hope of getting a government job, but to no avail.
“When I was finally accepted into a civil servant job, my name was replaced with someone who had connections. This was very common under Ben Ali”, she told MEE.
Today, she tutors schoolchildren and is the spokesperson for the National Association for Unemployed University Graduates.
“It makes me feel depressed to see people who got their job through corruption and clientelism work when we do not,” she said.
Thursday 6 February was one of the unemployed graduates’ major day of protests, culminating in thousands of demonstrators in front of the capital’s Kasbah neighbourhood, near the seat of government, and in other cities.
Towards the end of the afternoon, Karim Toraa, president of the unemployed graduates’ association, was invited to speak with a government official.
Refusing to sit, he asked for a written note of all promises made during former meetings and a precise timeline for their execution, which officials refused to provide.
“We understood in the last meetings with officials that there was no political will to resolve the issue and that they were buying time and absorbing the anger,” Toraa told MEE.
“The state also tried to hit our movement from the inside, by appointing some unemployed graduates in political positions. Now, at least five of our comrades are mayors and one was appointed a regional governor,” he added.
He was himself subtly offered a position once in a meeting with state representatives, he told MEE.
Unemployment fed by nepotism
For sociologist Mounir Saidani, socioeconomic rights have been sidelined following Saied's power grab on 25 July 2021, when the president froze parliament and started dismantling the democratic advances made after the revolution.
“Most of the political sphere was focused on the polarisation between government and opposition,” he told MEE, referring to the crackdown on political opposition.
Since 2021, at least 80 politicians and activists have been jailed, including dozens imprisoned solely for working with migrants. The UN recently called on Tunisia to end these arrests and arbitrary detentions.
For Saidani, authorities have been dealing with the unemployed graduates’ protest movement with more clemency, as their demands are considered legitimate.
“The authorities’ general policy towards them has been indicative of co-optation and negotiations,” the social expert said.
However, some demonstrations have been marred with arrests and police violence.
“In some protests, there are more police officers than protesters. They’re here to terrify people and eventually empty the streets of protesters,” Amami said, adding she saw protesters being hit with batons and subjected to teargas.
Seven people in the northern city of Kairouan are facing up to 15 years' imprisonment for participating in a protest of unemployed graduates. They are accused of assaulting a police officer, as well as disturbing public order.
“Post 25 July [2021], authorities managed to spread fear and self-censorship in activists' circles, through laws like Decree 54, harassment and trials,” Toraa said, referring to a piece of legislation adopted in 2022 to combat “fake news” and which is infamous for silencing activists and opponents.
“However, we’re past that now. People’s socioeconomic conditions are terrible. When people become hungry, they don’t have anything to fear anymore, not jail nor repression,” Toraa added.
Unemployment has been a long-lasting issue in Tunisia’s economy and one of the underlying factors of the 2011 revolution.
Since the Covid pandemic, it has stagnated around 16 percent in the country, disproportionality impacting educated youth and women.
In 2024, more than half of young women and a third of female university graduates were unemployed. Graduates are also twice more likely than high school dropouts to be jobless.
“Economic growth has been at a standstill for the past few years. It is impossible to create jobs in such conditions, especially for graduates,” Hafedh Ateb, an independent consultant in employment and vocational training, told MEE.
‘People’s socioeconomic conditions are terrible. When people become hungry, they don’t have anything to fear anymore, not jail nor repression’
- Karim Toraa, activist
Around 227,000 people with university diplomas were unemployed in 2024, he said.
“People have a right to study as long as they want. Unfortunately, our economic fabric cannot absorb this number of graduates,” he explained, arguing that policymakers should invest in high-added value industries such as finance or technology.
Protesters interviewed by MEE describe the private sector as exploitative, low-paying and guaranteeing little to no social protection or workers’ rights.
As a consequence, graduates have turned to public employment, but there are few positions, mainly within the police forces.
Furthermore, issues of corruption and nepotism have continued after the revolution, Saidani pointed.
According to observers, post-2011, political parties and trade unions used the general amnesty law, which promised employment to political prisoners and those wounded during the uprising, to appoint supporters and acquaintances.
To this day, according to Amami and others, “there is no real political will to fight corruption”.
“My parents have sacrificed everything for me to pursue my studies and work. Then, you learn that thousands of people are working with falsified diplomas,” the young graduate said, referring to revelations that thousands of civil servants might have bought or illegally obtained their certificates.
“The other part of the problem is the inadequacy between outdated education policies and the current job market,” Saidani pointed.
Afif Methnani, a recently graduated protester from Kairouan, also highlighted the issue.
“Education barely gets any funding. Ignorance has been generalised and we will see the devastating consequences of these policies in the future,” he told MEE.
A new uprising?
In 2020, a new law was adopted, promising to recruit graduates in order of merit according to criteria of age and year of graduation.
However, more than a year later, the president declared that the legislation could not be implemented, leading protesters in Kasserine to start a hunger strike.
‘The situation is unclear, but could explode at any moment. People’s patience has limits’
- Mounir Saidani, sociologist
Saied’s economic plan has mostly relied on recovering 13,5 bn dinars (roughly $4bn) allegedly stolen by previous elites and on so-called communitarian firms, which consist of local projects run and owned collectively to achieve regional development.
“These firms are no solution to unemployment. They mostly target farmers or workers wishing to improve their revenues with a local collective project,” Ateb noted.
Many young people, especially graduates, are not inspired by Saied’s program.
“Whenever we demand employment, officials will pressure us to start one of these local businesses. We have a right to employment, you can’t force these projects on us,” Methnani said.
“Laws and institutions with no use are created, while officials are irresponsible and incapable of suggesting anything to solve the crisis,” he added.
Last week, Saied also suggested a new bill to end all forms of temporary contracts and subcontracting, which he considers to be “modern slavery”. However, some economists have argued that such a law could have disastrous consequences for unemployment.
In the meantime, state policies encouraging employment have gradually been defunded, according to Ateb.
All this has led to a rise in emigration attempts.
More than 100,000 unemployed graduates left Tunisia between 2011 and 2021, mostly to look for jobs abroad, according to a national study. Almost half of the country’s engineers left in five years.
“Young people have found that the only solution is to emigrate, whether by boat or by plane. The state’s economic policies led them to this,” Ateb said.
Meanwhile, some have predicted the imminent advent of a new uprising that would prioritise socioeconomic rights.
“This is very likely, especially when authorities lie and then you discover years later that they were buying time and selling illusions,” Toraa said.
He believes that a majority of protesters who initially supported Saied are now disillusioned when none of the laws and promises were implemented.
“Saied wasn’t honest with us,” he said.
According to Saidani, the protest movements have so far been limited in part because Saied’s slogans, promoting national sovereignty and social justice, are in accordance with their demands.
However, the expert questions the stability of this equilibrium if no tangible progress is made and if the opposition’s narrative strengthens.
“The situation is unclear, but could explode at any moment. People’s patience has limits,” he said.
If you need support in the UK, then the Samaritans can be contacted at jo@samaritans.org or on 116 123. For the US, please try the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline on 1-800-273-8255. In Tunisia, you can contact the Association Tunisienne de la Promotion et Prévention en Santé Mentale: 23974466. For other countries, please see befrienders.org.
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