Retour sur la révolte du bassin minier. Les cinq leçons politiques d’un conflit social inédit

• Main Authors: Larbi Chouikha, Vincent Geisser
• Format: Article
• Language: fra
• Published: CNRS Éditions 2010-11-01
• Series: L’Année du Maghreb
• Subjects: economic crisis; protest; repression; social movements; union
• Online Access: http://journals.openedition.org/anneemaghreb/923

When it erupted in early 2008, nobody could foresee the extent to which the Gafsa miners’ revolt would develop. Limited initially to social and professional claims, the revolt gradually assumed a protest and political dimension, transforming the protests into a protest movement emblematic of the crisis in the “Ben Ali system”. First, the state’s security apparatus and authoritarian methods proved inadequate to the maintenance of public order, to such an extent that there were questions about the coherence of the law enforcement system. Secondly, the revolt in the mining area seriously compromised the myth of Tunisia as the “Dragon of Africa” with unemployment, job insecurity and corruption as the principal engines of protest. And finally politically, to the extent traditional opposition forces and unions found themselves overwhelmed by the courage of ordinary citizen protesters. In this sense, the social movement of the mining area is a source of “political instruction”, the review of which is useful to understand the degeneration of the security pact in place by the scheme during the previous decade.