page_title: Tunisian independence
section_title: Assassinations and terror (1952-1953)
hierarchical_section_title: Tunisian independence / Assassinations and terror (1952-1953)
caption_attribution_description: Farhat Hached
context_page_description: The process of Tunisian Independence occurred from 1952 to 1956 between France and a separatist movement led by Habib Bourguiba. Bourguiba became the first Prime minister of the Kingdom of Tunisia after negotiations with France successfully brought an end to the colonial protectorate leading to independence.
context_section_description: The Resident General persisted in his attempts to pressure the Bey into signing the French reforms. On 30 November he surrounded the palace with troops, on the pretext of protecting the Bey from the large demonstrations expected for the Mawlid festival. With all his nationalist advisers either in prison or in exile, the Bey had no-one to support him apart from Farhat Hached, the trade union leader, who visited him every day, encouraging him to stand firm. On 5 December 1952, Hached was assassinated by 'La Main Rouge' (The Red Hand), a terrorist unit operated by the French state to eliminate nationalists in North Africa. Anyone else who might advise or support the Bey was kept out of the way: Mohamed Salah Mzali was obliged to leave Tunis and remain in Monastir and when he tried to telephone the palace he found that all the lines had been cut. Completely cut off from the outside world, the ailing Bey wrote to the French government once again asking to restart negotiations about internal autonomy. With France's negative response on 20 December, he was able to resist no longer, and signed the decrees formulated months previously in Paris, which allowed for new municipal elections. 
  Bourguiba, in exile on the Galite Islands, understood all too well the extreme pressure which the Bey had withstood for so long. When he learned that he had finally given way and authorised the French proposals, he remarked 'I don't think we need to throw stones at this venerable old man who struggles alone in almost desperate conditions against an enemy who has no conscience and can exert such pressure. He may have thought... that it was better to bend once again than to be broken.' In any case, the reforms imposed by the French, on which they set such great store, remained a dead letter - the nationalists launched a campaign of terror against both candidates and voters. This extended as far as the ruling family itself - on 1 July 1953 the Bey al-Mahalla Azzedine Bey was assassinated inside his own palace, accused of weakening the position of the Bey by conducting discussions of his own with the Resident General. Arrested on the spot, the assassin was tried before a military tribunal, condemned to death on 28 September 1953 and shot on 14 April 1954. Essadok Bey, son of Mustapha Bey, became the new Bey al-Mahalla.  He was not regarded sympathetic to the Neo Destour.  On 2 September 1953, Jean de Hauteclocque was finally recalled to Paris.
caption: Farhat Hached
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