Forty years after the formation of his party, Rached Ghannouchi takes, for the first time, functions in the higher spheres of the Tunisian state. The former opponent, leader of the Islamist party Ennahda, was elected Wednesday, November 13, president of the Tunisian parliament, also designated as the Assembly of People's Representatives.

At 78, this great figure of the Islamic opposition under Ben Ali remains difficult to pin down. Author of sermons inflamed in the 1970s, he advocates today the separation of politics and religion and is a defender of a tolerant Islam. The multi-faceted "sheikh" has made a political shift - sincere for some, opportunistic for others.

The historical opponent

Rached Ghannouchi was born in 1941 into a pious family of peasants in the oasis-town of El-Hamma, 30 km west of Gabes. At the time, the hero of the family is not Bourguiba, described as "enemy of Arab-Muslim culture", but Nasser, the president of Egypt. It is naturally in Cairo, the "center of the world", as he will later confide in an interview, that Ghannouchi leaves to study. Under an arrangement between the two countries concerning foreign students, he was expelled in 1964. The young man continued his studies of theology and philosophy in Damascus and Paris.

Converted to the thesis of the Muslim Brotherhood during his stay in Egypt, he returned to Tunisia in 1969. He taught philosophy for ten years, then founded, in 1981, the Movement of the Islamic trend (MTI). This is the beginning of a long standoff with the Tunisian authorities. While his preaching at mosques is increasingly heard, Ghannouchi was arrested for the first time in 1981, served three years in prison, and was arrested again in 1987.

Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali released him a year later, after ruling out Bourguiba's power for "senility," inventing the passage of the "medical coup". The new head of state multiplies the pledges to official Islam. For the legislative 1989, the Islamists are allowed to appear on "independent" lists and it is on this occasion that Ghannouchi renamed his party Ennahda "The rebirth". But on April 2, 1989, Ben Ali is elected with 99.27% ​​of the votes. Ghannouchi cries out for fraud and leaves Tunisia illegally via Algeria.

The thinker of political Islam in exile

It is in London that Ghannouchi and his family find refuge. Meanwhile, in Tunisia, Ben Ali launches an operation to eradicate Islamists. In August 1992, during a conspiracy trial, some 30 Ennahda leaders were sentenced to life imprisonment, including Ghannouchi. More than 10,000 opponents of power are arrested.

During these 20 years of exile, the "sheikh" keeps the presidency of Ennahda, then gone underground and banned in Tunisia. He then asserts himself as a thinker of contemporary political Islam, and publishes "Public Freedoms in the Muslim State". "He was perceived as a reformist thinker and was among the first to condemn bin Laden," said Vincent Gesser, CNRS researcher and specialist in the Muslim world, contacted by France 24.

"From London, he received delegations of international actors who came to consult him as a reference of contemporary Islam and internal political actors who came to conduct negotiations in the back," said the researcher who met him on several occasions at that time.

Power and compromise

He must wait for the departure of Ben Ali and the Tunisian revolution to return to his country. On January 30, 2011, he is greeted triumphantly by thousands of fans. But this is not yet his time: he refuses any political responsibility, preferring to give priority to the redesign of his party.

Ennahda is legalized in March and won the first free elections in October 2011. Since then, Ghannouchi has imposed his party at the mercy of various unnatural alliances and ideological transformation. In 2014, after his defeat in the legislative elections, he made an alliance with the secular party Nidaa Tounes. Two years later, he announced that Ennahda "comes out of political Islam" to "enter the Muslim democracy". Finally, in 2019, he assumes the presidency of the Assembly after an agreement with the liberal party Qalb Tounes.

"Ghannouchi has always been ready for all the compromises - not to mention compromises - to integrate his party into the Tunisian political system and to come to power, even under dictatorship he was ready to integrate the authoritarian system," Vincent Gesser analyzes. "The separation of Islam and politics is one more compromise, a change of label to reassure its internal interlocutors and international donors, not a total overhaul of ideology".

These luridings make many skeptics, within the party, as among its opponents. More clivant than ever, and while some hoped to see the presidency of Parliament return to a young executive of Ennahda, or even to a woman, Rached Ghannouchi keeps the reins, yielding "to a whim of old gentleman", according to Vincent Gesser . The one who has always animated: the power.