[citation needed] A year after his accession, in May 1930, an International Eucharistic Congress was convened in Carthage to celebrate the centenary of the French conquest of Algeria.

Ahmed Bey reluctantly agreed to serve as Honorary President of the Congress, which was partly paid for with 2 million francs worth of funds from the Tunisian government, raised in taxes on Tunisia's Muslim population.

The event, with some participants dressed as Crusaders and others using it as a platform for speeches hostile to Islam, caused a furore in the Tunisian national movement.

[4] The Bey made very limited efforts to resist these demands,[5] but eventually signed a decree on 3 October 1940, which excluded Jews from the civil service and from professional roles connected to press, radio, theatre and cinema, while also allowing the publication of a 'Journal israélite de Tunisie' (Jewish Newspaper of Tunisia').

Ahmad II had ten sons and eight daughters, including Prince Muhammad al-Taib Bey (1902–1989) who was the head of the Husainid Dynasty from 1974 until 1989.