Mathilde Zederman, Tunisian Politics in France. Long-Distance Activism since the 1980s (Cambridge University Press, 2024).
Jadaliyya (J): What made you write this book?
Mathilde Zederman (MZ): My motivation for writing this book comes from the fact that Tunisian exiles are still not recognized as full political actors, either in France or in Tunisia. Through investigating Tunisian political activism in France since the 1980s, I wanted to show that migrants and their descendants are neither depoliticized nor do they form a disembodied and homogeneous group. My ambition instead was to document the history of their political struggles in exile and analyze a little-known aspect of Tunisian politics, which unfolded across borders and had a long-lasting impact. In doing so, I also wanted to transcend uniform visions of the Tunisian community in France, and to stress that different cleavages animated Tunisian politics in exile: the book pays attention to different constellations of actors, mainly pro-regime groups and the oppositional milieu made up of Tunisian Islamists and leftists exiles. Put differently, as the last words of the book point out: “Thirteen years following the “Arab Spring”, and in face of new forms of repression emerging in Tunisia, I wanted to contribute to safeguarding the social and political memory of collective action in opposition to an authoritarian regime – an opposition that can take place well beyond national borders and a memory that can be the breeding ground for new forms of activism in the present”.
J: What particular topics, issues, and literatures does the book address?
MZ: The book proposes a political sociology framework to advance our understanding of the nexus between exile, activism, and authoritarianism. It addresses questions such as: What were the conditions that enabled long-distance Tunisian politics? What does it mean to oppose or support an authoritarian regime from afar? How is activism reconfigured in migration?
The volume is organized thematically to grasp the universe of Tunisian politics in France as fully as possible. First, it maps the key actors involved and traces the ways in which they conducted their politics, through political parties, associations, or other movements. Furthermore, it draws attention to the constraints and possibilities involved in long-distance activism. The Tunisian system of control from afar is explored, through the concept of “politics of encadrement,” in order to specify the restrictions imposed upon Tunisian anti-regime mobilization under Ben Ali. It also probes the ways in which the French authorities managed the different groups, from a diplomatic approach towards Ben Ali’s party-state to a securitized approach towards Islamists, and a somehow indifferent one towards the leftist movements. The book then examines the repertoires of action used by activists fighting Ben Ali’s authoritarian regime, and stresses the ambivalence of what is identified as a turn to human rights in the 1990s. It also sheds new light on the history and political sociology of immigrant activism, in which Tunisians in France have played a central role. Indeed, Tunisian activists took part in other struggles, linked for instance to the Palestinian cause or to the betterment of the social and economic conditions of immigrants in France and to anti-racism. On this basis, the book narrates the coalitions of oppositional actors who gathered to fight the Ben Ali regime from afar; it also examines, in particular, how Islamists and leftists worked to bind their community through their own spaces of sociability and inter-knowledge networks. The last chapter provides a conclusion by addressing the evolution of Tunisian activism abroad both during and after the 2011 Tunisian Revolution, which led to the overthrow of the Ben Ali regime.
J: How does this book connect to and/or depart from your previous work?
MZ: I had done previous work on the political uses of the past in Tunisia—more specifically addressing Ennahda appropriations of Bourguiba legacy in the post-revolutionary context, which was useful for this research. But this book is my first published manuscript, and it stems from my PhD dissertation and subsequent postdoctoral positions, so it is in fact my first big research project.
J: Who do you hope will read this book, and what sort of impact would you like it to have?
MZ: Anyone interested in exile, diaspora, and immigration politics; transnational activism; authoritarianism; and French and Tunisian history and politics! I hope that the book appeals to students and scholars who are interested in those different strands of the literature.
Ultimately, I hope this book will be accessible to a wide audience beyond academia, especially in activist circles. However, I am also aware that this is an academic book written in English (a language that not all actors interviewed in the book master). Although I have done my best to write this book in an accessible way, this raises more general political and ethical questions about the production of knowledge—for whom and from where do we produce knowledge? As I mention in the introduction of the book, the actors I am talking about are not objects or mere sources, but were part of the research project itself, both empirically and theoretically speaking. Yet in this case, the complex issue of knowledge restitution remains unsolved.
J: What other projects are you working on now?
MZ: As the quote in response to your first question shows, the book concludes with issues of memory of activism and forgotten voices, and this also makes the link with my ongoing research. I am currently engaged in various projects related to the preservation of traces of political activism, more particularly interrogating the relationships between archiving, activism, and exile. The archiving of political activism in exile is a site where power relationships are produced and expressed. Besides, having been recently recruited as an Associate Professor at the University of Paris-Nanterre, I am mainly focusing right now on my teaching and I am very enthusiastic about diverse reflection on alternative pedagogies.
Excerpt from the book (from the Introduction, pages 1 to 3)
Abdelmalek Sayad used to speak of the ‘double absence’ of migrants in the political imagination of the country of origin and the host country. We wanted to lift a veil of contempt and ignorance on the double social and political presence of Tunisian immigrants-emigrants in France and Tunisia.
(Ben Hiba, in Fédération des Tunisiens pour une Citoyenneté des deux Rives 2014, 3)
With these words Tarek Ben Hiba, a major figure of Tunisian activism in France, opened a retrospective of forty years of mobilisation by a leading Tunisian leftist association in France of which he was then president. The statement acknowledges Abdelmalek Sayad, an Algerian sociologist who pioneered the concept of immigration being a ‘double absence’. This reverse idea of ‘double presence’ between the two shores of the Mediterranean that Tarek Ben Hiba was writing about is far from being a euphemism. Ben Hiba embodied this himself, and on his death in June 2022 he left behind an impressive political heritage that numerous actors quickly sought to pass on to future generations.
First active within one of the main leftist groups in Tunisia, el-‘Amel el-Tounsi, in the 1970s and in trade union activities, Ben Hiba came to France in 1988 and was thereafter at the forefront of all struggles against discrimination, racism and Islamophobia. He supported the rights of undocumented migrants, citizenship for all, and the rights of Palestinians. Elected as a regional counsellor in the Paris region from 2004 to 2010, he also continued to participate in the fight against dictatorships in the Maghreb, and particularly in Tunisia. From France, he contributed to the organisation of many demonstrations, wrote communiqués against repression and took part in original alliances gathering Islamists and leftists to oppose the Tunisian regime.
When in December 2010 street vendor Mohamed Bouazizi self-immolated to protest against police harassment in a small town in central Tunisia called Sidi Bouzid, which was followed by weeks of mass protests initiating the misnamed ‘Arab Spring’, Ben Hiba engaged from France in the Collective of Solidarity with the Struggles of Sidi Bouzid Residents to support the ongoing revolution. As thousands of Tunisians took to the streets in Paris, often for the first time, many had the opportunity to discover Ben Hiba’s words as he addressed the crowds. A couple of months later, following the overthrow of Zine El-Abidine Ben Ali’s twenty-three-year rule, he was a member of the High Authority for the Realisation of the Objectives of the Revolution of Political Reforms and Democratic Transition. While the High Authority was in charge of organising ‘the transition from revolution to elections’ of the Constituent National Assembly (Lieckefett 2012, 133), Ben Hiba represented the category of ‘Tunisians abroad’.
Yet Ben Hiba’s words seem entirely accurate when he evoked ‘the veil of contempt and ignorance’ over this ‘double presence’ of many actors. Tunisian migrants in France found themselves struggling to secure a legitimate position in an increasingly securitised and hostile environment. Often described in the public sphere as a homogeneous entity, and frequently dehumanised, these migrants are seldom considered as political actors with any sense of agency. On the other side of the Mediterranean, in a context in which binationals are far too often discredited and suspected of not really being Tunisian, the relocation of Tunisian politics abroad that took place over decades does not seem to be a part of Tunisian collective history or memory. This twofold invisibilisation of political mobilisation in exile stands in stark contrast to the ever-growing scholarship on political transnationalism and exile politics in the social science literature. This rather unsettling paradox is what laid the ground for this research. This book seeks to explain how Tunisia’s politics and history can only be understood by taking into account its history of long-distance activism. Prior to the 2011 Revolution, an understudied and yet central aspect of post-independence Tunisian politics was the way in which both pro-regime and oppositional activism played out across borders – particularly in France, where the majority of exile groups took refuge and were spurred to action.
This book rests on two guiding questions: What were the conditions that enabled long-distance Tunisian politics? How do we explain what it meant to oppose or support an authoritarian regime from afar in terms of reconfiguring this activism in a migratory context? To answer these questions, this book will explore the creation and dynamics of what I conceptualise as the ‘trans-state space of mobilisation’ by looking at the main actors who worked to produce this space: the oppositional milieu that was made up of Tunisian Islamists and leftists, as well as networks of support and stakeholders within the Tunisian authoritarian party-state. The book also analyses the way this space came to be structured and the conflicts that were involved as pro- and anti-regime homeland politics aspired to inform and influence power from afar. It also draws particular attention to the constraints and possibilities involved in long-distance activism. From the perspective of political sociology, this book thus explores the evolution of political action that took place when Tunisian activists crossed national borders and started, continued or reconfigured homeland struggles from abroad, thereby challenging but also reinforcing the boundaries of Tunisian politics.
Before beginning an in-depth exploration of long-distance Tunisian activism, I will first discuss the choice to examine the Tunisian case in France and situate the study in the broader political, economic and migratory relationships between Tunisia and France. The second section of this introduction will present the theoretical framework underlying that universe of political practice, located at the intersection of scholarship on North African politics, social movements and diaspora politics, and will clarify this study’s contributions to those different strands of the literature. The third section will outline the issues involved in doing fieldwork after the 2011 Revolution and introduce the material on which this book draws – namely sixty-eight semi-structured interviews with active members of a wide range of exile groups, including Islamists, leftists and elites within the Tunisian and French regimes, numerous informal discussions and observations as well as archival work.
The Choice of Tunisian Politics in France
Why choose France for understanding long-distance Tunisian activism? Fundamentally because France and Tunisia are bound by colonial, migration and mobilisation histories. The density and diversity of the Tunisian communities made France – Paris in particular – a unique breeding ground for activism and a particularly rich site for research. The long-term and diverse Tunisian political action that took place in France allows us to follow its variations and understand its complexities from afar. Yet, until the 2011 Revolution Tunisia was much too often envisaged as an ‘exceptional’ and ‘quiet’ country (Dakhlia 2011) where social and political contestations were not worthy of interest. This ‘myth of Tunisian exceptionalism’ (Camau 2018) was in itself a discourse of power useful to legitimate the policies of Habib Bourguiba – the first president of postindependence Tunisia (1957–1987) – and later his successor Ben Ali (1987–2011). This was particularly the case for European partners for whom Tunisia was seen as a miracle in the so-called Arab world, particularly in terms of women’s emancipation, religion and education (Marzouki and Meddeb 2016). But this ‘myth’ also had an influence on the production of knowledge. This problematic discourse on the ‘exceptionality of Tunisia’ fuelled a lack of scholarly interest in the contestation of political order and was reinforced in the context of Ben Ali’s neoliberal Tunisia. The country was then also considered a model of economic stability and performance, a ‘good student’ of the international organisations because of its supposed reformist character (Hibou 2009) – and was therefore seen as unshakable by Western powers.
The 2011 Revolution changed the dynamics. Pioneering works on Tunisian opposition politics (Khiari 2003; Ayari 2016) and the political economy of repression in Tunisia (Camau and Geisser 2003; Hibou 2006) have been complemented by recent studies concentrating on the revolutionary processes that followed the fall of Ben Ali (Hmed 2016; Allal and Geisser 2018; Yousfi 2019). These stimulating works on post-independence Tunisian history and politics have mainly focussed on national events, and little attention has been paid to what has happened outside the nation’s boundaries, although political actions have often started there and their study can shed much light on any number of national issues. There is therefore a risk of romanticising the sudden post-2011 political awakening of essentialised Tunisian diasporas. By documenting and analysing the way Tunisian politics has played out across borders, this study of Tunisian activism in France under Ben Ali’s authoritarian rule aspires to fill this gap while avoiding the attendant risks that such an approach may involve.
The dynamics of long-distance Tunisian activism described here emerged from the history of colonisation and, relatedly, from the history of post-colonial immigration. To understand Tunisian activism in France, it is first necessary to offer as a backdrop a quick overview of Tunisian emigration and immigration, and the diplomatic issues this entailed between France and Tunisia. Both countries played a role in emigration dynamics. Bourguiba’s and Ben Ali’s authoritarian regimes institutionalised ‘the Tunisian paradigm of migration’ as a cornerstone of political order in post-colonial Tunisia (Dini and Giusa 2021, 26), whilst the importation of Tunisian labourers was also central to France’s policies. If Tunisian politics in France draws on earlier labour migratory configurations, we will also discover that this entanglement is only partial.