“Headshot” in Tunisia

Illegal departures to Europe are usually discreet. Smugglers and passengers for immigration by sea prefer the semi-darkness to hide their border smuggling. Thursday, another protocol at La Chebba, stuck on the shores of the Mediterranean. A protocol of anger. Residents took boats to flee their city. Direction: the Italian coasts, Lampedusa for first objective. Several hundred have volunteered to leave, about twenty boats weighed anchor last Thursday, then stopped by the navy. This spectacular action, with the aspects of a Clochemerle version Tunisia, follows a decision of the Tunisian Football Federation (FTF). This suspended the local football club, the Chebbien Sporting Crescent (CSC), from the 2020-2021 national competitions. The club did not honor fines amounting to 180,000 dinars (50,000 euros).

This ban has been interpreted as a vendetta led by FTF president Wadii Al-Jari (“the daring” in Arabic). The city rose up after the announcement of the sanction, its entrances blocked by burnt tires, its administrations closed. Experts in social braziers have deciphered the case: a decision taken “from above” which makes the inhabitants feel considered “as second-class citizens”. Such a decision, the suspension, would never have been taken if it was a big club. A feeling of injustice heightened by a duel between the presidents of the CSC and the FTF against a background of political ambitions. A relative of the Kasbah judges that “the situation could worsen”.

In a folklore style, a story that tells a lot about the mistrust between citizens and the central state. A story that ricochets with that of El Kamour, a southern region, where a conflict has just died out after four years of blockage.

A Grenelle in the Sahara

Close to the oil fields of the Sahara, we celebrated in an atmosphere of jubilation the signing of an agreement which puts an end to four long years of a movement which paralyzed all the production of black gold. Moncef Achour, adviser to the Minister of Social Affairs, was part of the task force dispatched by Tunis. Goal ? Occire a crisis that had lasted since 2017. What is at stake? Oil production throughout the south of the country. Strikes and sit-ins have forced the country to increase its imports of energy, a bill that has helped to unbalance the trade balance. If councilor Achour refuses to “sink into euphoria”, the man contemplates “a signed agreement followed immediately by an implementation”.

The method, crowned with success, deserves to be talked about. Very often, social upheavals accompanied by tires that are sprinkled with gasoline are dealt with by ministerial processions which disembark in cars and leave immediately after the session is over. Consequence: an exacerbated frustration, locals who have the impression that they are visited to calm them, “as at the zoo”. Under the leadership of the new president of the government, Hichem Mechichi, a delegation left the ministries of Tunis to take up residence in Tataouine. “We had received the obligation to remain on site until the conflict was resolved”, explains Councilor Achour.

Beforehand, Mohamed Trabelsi, minister and veteran of social affairs, had ordered each of the negotiators “to spend three days there in order to improve the climate for negotiations”. The negotiations marathon, for its part, lasted from “October 7 to November 5”. One month to “succeed in obtaining mutual trust, in proving to protesters that they are not second-class citizens, in linking respect for the word of the State and the continuity of oil production”. One month to prove that an agreement is possible. If some have tried, on the TV sets, “to revive the old demons opposing the North to the South”, Tunis to the Sahara, “it is now a question of making the El Kamour agreement the good cholesterol of social mediation », Concludes Achour.

From black gold to the round ball, the motives differ, but the evils are the same: a rupture between citizens and national leaders. On the eve of a social winter aggravated by the economic consequences of Covid-19, we are monitoring the protests. “The way counts more than the substance”, notes a familiar with the palaces of power. When the central state delegates power, takes the time to negotiate, honors its past commitments, the solution emerges. In La Chebba, it must now be played as in Tatatouine.