page_title: Salah ben Youssef
section_title: Confrontation
hierarchical_section_title: Salah ben Youssef / Confrontation
caption_attribution_description: Arrivée de Salah Ben Youssef à Tunis&#160;: défilé en voiture avec Bourguiba dans les rues de Tunis
context_page_description: Salah Ben Youssef was a Tunisian politician and one of the key leaders of the Tunisian national movement.
context_section_description: This fait accompli took place without him and he considered it "a step backwards and a setback". In Ben Youssef's view, the wholesale evacuation of French Troops from the entirety of Tunisian territory was an indisputable prerequisite for genuine national independence.
  Whereas Ben Youssef was previously a loyal servant and friend of Bourghiba, when he returned to the country on June 1, 1955, he became Bourghiba's arch-enemy. According to Ben Youssef, his adversary was capable of practicing a "policy of denial and betrayal" of the Tunisian People and concerning the Algerian War. Having returned to Tunisia from Cairo on September 13, he began to organize unrest throughout the country.
  Though aligned with Bourguiba, the "Bourguibists", and those aligned with Ben Youssef, the Youssefists, began to have numerous meetings to denounce and strike down the position of the opposing party... Convened on October 8, under Bourguiba's leadership, the Neo-Destour caucus decided to open session and thereupon demand that Ben Youssef be expelled from the party. Stripped of his functions and excluded from the party following the congress convened from November 15 to 19, Ben Youssef, continued to campaign in the south of Tunisia where he organized a number of gatherings up to the end of November which resulted in clashes with Bourguiba supporters. He remained, however, committed to his activism up until January 1958.
caption: Arrival of Salah Ben Youssef to Tunis September 13, 1955.
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