On June 17, 1958, and in a tense regional context, France evacuated all its military bases in Tunisia, except for its base in Bizerte, but then Tunisian President Habib Bourguiba insisted on restoring this enclave because it symbolizes the incomplete character of independence, and also to pull the rug out from under the feet of his opponents. who continue to treat him as a "servant of imperialism" because of his pro-West.
To commemorate the 60th anniversary of the start of the Battle of Bizerte, which fell on July 19;
The French website Orient XXI publishes an article by French historian of Tunisian origin, Sophie Bessis, in which she sheds light on the dimensions of this battle and its historical context, regionally and internationally.
Bessis believes that the Battle of Bizerte was the most serious crisis that affected French-Tunisian relations after Tunisia's independence in 1956, and considers it closely linked to the regional context at that time, especially the Algerian war of liberation, which was straining relations between Paris and its former protectorate, after the French army hijacked a plane carrying the leaders of the FN Algerian national liberation from Morocco to Tunisia, in addition to a series of provocations by the French authorities.
Tunisia represented a strategic back garden in which France did not want the Algerian fighters who found help and refuge there to settle.
On February 8, 1958, the French air force invoked the "right of pursuit" outside Algeria's borders, and bombed the Tunisian border village of Sakiet Sidi Youssef, killing nearly 100 civilians. Tunisia submitted a complaint to the Security Council in which it was supported by Washington, which It sees Bourguiba as its most important Maghreb ally.
Regional and International Context
Meanwhile, General Charles de Gaulle came to power in Paris, and he was - as you see the historian - afraid that the Americans would find a foothold in the Maghreb, so he evacuated all France's bases in Tunisia except for Bizerte, but Bourguiba insisted on the exit of Paris from Bizerte at a time when it was He had tense relations with the leaders of the Algerian revolution and with Cairo during the days of the late Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser.
These circumstances - according to Bassis - led to the Battle of Bizerte, which constituted a stinging military defeat for Tunisia, but it also represented an indisputable diplomatic victory for this country, and a human tragedy that the authorities there would not stop underestimating, and Bourguiba took it as a pretext to silence any opposition in the country.
Bourguiba's relations with Egypt at that time were at their lowest levels after an assassination attempt against him was prepared in Cairo, from which his opponent, Saleh bin Youssef, supported by the Egyptian president, was attacking him, and his relations with the Algerian leaders were not better, as they did not forgive Tunisia and Rabat negotiating their independence The private sector in 1956 instead of forming a common front with the struggle that began in 1954 in Algeria against the occupier.
In order to cut off the increasing violent criticism by Abdel Nasser - who distanced him from the Arab world and Ben Youssef, who accuses him of wanting to exterminate the "Algerian brothers" - Bourguiba wanted to resolve the Bizerte case, so he demanded its eviction in July 1961, at a time that seemed appropriate to him, as it coincided with France's decision to extend the runway of the naval air base to accommodate new types of aircraft, but France responded with a threat issued by the commander of its forces in Bizerte that he would resort to the use of force if the Tunisian authorities tried to prevent the project.
The Tunisian president sent envoys to the French president with an explicit message in this regard, but de Gaulle expelled them without issuing a statement in this regard, and in reaction to de Gaulle's refusal to receive his message, Bourguiba immediately severed his country's diplomatic relations with Paris.
horrific massacre
In his long political life, the nationalist leader Bourguiba, who became a statesman, always knew how to measure the balance of power and even then he had made a mistake - according to the writer - only once;
That was when he miscalculated in April 1938 about the extent of France's determination to preserve the situation in Tunisia as it was, which cost him years of imprisonment, and the Bizerte case in 1961 represented his second mistake, as he was convinced that Paris would not respond.
On July 19, thousands of civilians were sent to demonstrate against the occupation. Ten thousand people, led by women, gathered and tried to storm the barriers of the French army, and the French soldiers only opened fire to prevent the crowd from advancing;
This resulted in a two-day massacre that the Tunisian army could not stop, in which about two thousand civilians were killed, according to the most balanced estimates, which constituted a horrific shock that had serious internal repercussions, according to the writer.
Bourguiba - according to Bessis - was surprised by the scale of the disaster that he did not expect, but he wanted to turn it into a diplomatic victory, so he filed a complaint with the Security Council, and United Nations Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld accepted Tunisia's invitation to visit Bizerte.
However, de Gaulle's contempt for the international organization was evident in the search of the trunk of Hammarskjöld's car at the entrance to the besieged city, in circumstances that did not suit Washington the speed with which Bourguiba began the battle in light of an international atmosphere marked by tension, after the Berlin crisis and in light of France entering difficult negotiations with the National Liberation Front The algerian.
But the activity of Tunisian diplomacy helped her, as Bassis sees;
Where it calmed the American anger, and got the vote of the General Assembly of the United Nations headed by the Tunisian Monji Slim that year, by an overwhelming majority on a resolution in favor of Tunisia, and on the Arab side, Abdel Nasser supported his old opponent who opposed France and restored diplomatic relations with Tunisia, to return to the Arab fold, But the evacuation of Bizerte did not take place until 1963, after Algeria's independence.
On the domestic front, the battle of Bizerte had contradictory results, according to the historian.
It was even partly a reason for a failed coup attempt in December 1962, in which 11 people were executed, the government banned the Communist Party and the ruling New Constitutional Party became the only party in the country, and all opposition in the country was eliminated.
The official version celebrated the Bizerte incident as a victory over colonialism, but the elderly in that region still remember the blood that was shed in vain, and the Tunisian people still view what happened as a tragedy, especially since de Gaulle was in the process of implementing a timetable he set to evacuate Tunisia from any military presence. Foreigner.