Another night of clashes in Tunisia.

Demonstrators clashed with the police, Sunday evening, January 17, in several cities of the country and this despite a health lockdown in force, several days after the anniversary of the Tunisian revolution.

"If there was someone to judge our morons of politicians ... These delinquents are only the result of their failure!", Plague Abdelmonem, a coffee waiter.

Dozens of young people, mostly minors between the ages of 14 and 17, have been arrested after clashes over the past three days, Khaled Hayouni, spokesperson for the Interior Ministry told AFP on Sunday.

If the anniversary of the Tunisian revolution was stifled by a general four-day confinement which ends on Sunday in an attempt to stem an outbreak of Covid-19 cases, it did not prevent the unrest, the reasons for which exact are not known.

>> To read also on France24.com: Tunisia, ten years later: "There have been two revolutions in one"

These clashes occur in a context of political instability and the deterioration of the social situation in Tunisia.

"No future here"

In the streets, teenagers fill their pockets with stones.

"It's for the enemies," one of them says happily, referring to the police officers.

The sound of the howling sirens does not cover that of the explosions of the fireworks thrown from the roofs of houses, from which young people were targeting at nightfall, with stones, an important device of the police and the National Guard.

"Go home!", Launches one of the gendarmes over a loudspeaker, when the security forces were firing massive tear gas to disperse the groups present.

For Abdelmonem, "it is young bored adolescents who are the perpetrators of this violence".

But the 28-year-old believes that "it is the political class which is the cause of these tensions".

Very lively between the different parties making up a fragmented Parliament since the 2019 elections, tensions weaken the government largely overhauled on Saturday and awaiting a vote of confidence.

Divisions paralyze the country at a time when the social emergency is accentuated with the Covid-19 pandemic - 177,231 cases, including 5,616 deaths -, which adds the rise in unemployment to that of prices and highlights the failure of public services.

"I see no future here! Everything is sad, degraded, we are really in trouble!", Launches the waiter to AFP, nervously pulling on a cigarette, determined to go to sea "as soon as possible without ever coming back ".

Clashes in several working-class neighborhoods

The month of January is regularly the scene of mobilizations in Tunisia, because this period marks the anniversary of several major social and democratic struggles.

But here, "it is not a question of protest movements, it is young people who come from close quarters to steal and have fun," said Oussama, 26, resident of Ettadhamen.

"If we protest, it will be the day and face open."

In Kram, a popular district in the north of Tunis, Sanad Attia, 18, was preparing to spend the evening outside despite the curfew which starts at 4 p.m., joining groups of young people in a tense face-to-face with the police. .

"I quit school, it was useless, I trained with Olympique Kram to become a footballer," he explains.

"But with the Covid, the club is closed, we can't do anything, now all I want is to go to Italy".

In recent days, clashes have taken place in several working-class neighborhoods, notably in Tunis, Bizerte, Menzel Bourguiba (north), Sousse and Nabeul (east), Kasserine and Siliana (north-west), according to AFP correspondents and videos posted on the Internet by residents.

These showed young people in several towns burning tires, insulting the police or looting businesses.

On social networks, some Tunisians attributed the violence to the failure of the political class to improve the situation, others accused parties of using these disturbances to "create chaos".

With AFP

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