Early life of Habib Bourguiba

[3] When he left the army, France had just taken full control over the country, with the signature of the Bardo Treaty on May 12, 1881, and the Conventions of La Marsa of June 8, 1883, which established the French protectorate with the approval of Sadok Bey.

The family house was inhabited by the three children of Mohamed Bourguiba: his daughter Emna, who married Ahmed Sakka, his second son Hassan, and Ali and his wife.

Years later, Bourguiba stated that during one fight, his father draw his sword to threaten his brother Mohamed, who was armed with a gun and insisted on the numerous quarrels between sisters-in-law, jealous of Ali's wife, Fattouma who gave birth to six boys.

When Bourguiba was born, Ali, who was 53, became councilman and was part once again of the city's notability, which permitted him both to improve his social and financial situation but also provide a modern education future for his last son, just like his brothers.

He also spent a lot of time with his father who insisted that he pursued with a studious education so he could avoid Ali's fate in the army: "I do not want you to be cut back like a workhorse.

[7] At the end of the holidays, he returned to his brother's in Tunis where, after lessons, he strolled streets and admired the bey coming, on each Thursday to the Kasbah, to chair the seal ceremony.

[14][7] The year 1913 was for Bourguiba an important one: Working harder on his studies, he obtained his Certificat d'études primaires which dispensed him of military servitude by order of a beylical decree and to the grand relief of his father.

[15] However, his joy did not last: On October 1, he went back to Tunis in order to start the year in Sadiki College but during the first week of November 1913, "the superintendent called me out of class and announced me the death of my mother", Bourguiba stated in 1973.

As for him, no other event has been rougher that his mother's death: Neither his future remoteness in Bordj le Bœuf years later, nor his imprisonment in the Fort Saint-Nicolas in Marseille nor even his exile in Cairo.

[8] However, his start of secondary studies coincided with the beginning of World War I in September 1914 shortly followed with the school's financial problems, managed by a severe headmaster.

Bourguiba stated that back in that time, food was terrible: They served them a stew with squash and a macaroni at lunch while giving them a donut wrapped in newspaper and smelling oil, at breakfast.

But the cold of winter and junk food caused by deprivation on the initiative of the school headmaster who supported a War effort, worsened the boy's health.

[21] Bourguiba stated in 1973 the reasons his brother supported him: "As for "si" Mahmoud, I had forgotten to tell you that the year I passed my certificat d'études primaires and lost my mother, he had just left Sadiki where he was an intern.

During the conference he held years later, in 1973, Bourguiba recalled the points that marked his youth and influenced his thinking:[23] In truth, when I was a student in Sadiki, I used to be certainly, animated by patriotic feelings but I never took action.

So he started his new lessons in Professor Picard's class who introduced different philosophical doctrines, "letting his students free to choose the opinion that was the closest to their personal ideas".

[8] He regularly visited libraries, had a great passion for history books but consistently skipped classes in order to attend, every Friday, Habiba Msika's performance of L'Aiglon.

"It was in Paris that I wanted to pursue my studies in order to deeply learn its way of living and ruling but also the secrets of its administrative, political and parliamentary organization", he justified years later.

Bourguiba was following the international news in detail, was opposed to Bolsheviks and got interested in Gandhi's idea of transforming the National Indian Congress into a powerful mass organization.

He also thought that Hô Chi Minh's participation in Tours Congress and his joining of the Communist International, aiming to get his country independence with the help of the enemies of Imperialism and Capitalism, made him dependent of the Union of Socialist Soviet Republics (USSR).

I was eager to discover the workings of this civilization, the secret of the power of this country, which reduced mine to the colonial condition so that, well knowing my goals, I was able, the day I start the fight, to adopt the appropriate tactics to dissuade him and bring him to change policy.In summer, Bourguiba returned to Monastir where he also found M'hamed, who came back from Algeria obtaining his law degree.

After vacations spent between Mahdia and Monastir, Bourguiba returned to Paris in the opening of 1925–26 school year, worried about nationalist activism back in the country.

[29] The sponsor Taieb Radhwan, sent him via the association Les Amis de l'étudiant, registration fees to Paris Institute of Political Studies, where he started attending public finance classes.

The same year, his friends Sfar and Guiga joined him to Paris while he was tutoring a Sfaxian student, Mohamed Aloulou, sent by his parents to sit for the baccalaureate exam in Lycée Louis-le-Grand.

[33] One day of 1925, while tiding his room, Bourguiba found the address of a woman his protector recommended to meet: Mathilde Lefras, a 35 years old widow whose husband died during the war.

It was Habib, the brother of Chadlia Zouiten, who discovered his affair with Mathilde and wrote him a letter: "I do not hide that I find this attitude a bit coward [...] you, who was supposed to marry my sister".

But even in the neighbourhood, their relationship was very frowned and, to end gossips, Bourguiba elaborated a stratagem: He wore his costume and arrived in Mathilde's car, accompanied by Sfar and Guiga to simulate their wedding.

All these changes seemed to have distanced him from his way of activism in Tunisia, despite the riots and uprising that started in the country, the resident-general ending up signing a decree to prohibit freedom of expression, but also censoring newspapers.

This inequality chocked him and led him to discuss these matters with both Tunisian and French friends, who agree with the necessity to start a reform process aiming to get Tunisia resemble France, that is, liberal, modern and secular.

[40] In 1973, Bourguiba testified on this controversy that had been his political start:[29] The French Socialist Party, passed a motion declaring that by occupying Tunisia, France had not only rights but also obligations.

On this occasion, millions of Europeans invaded the capital city and went to the Saint-Lucien de Carthage cathedral, disguised in crusaders, which humiliated and revolted the people who protested against what they considered, as a violation of an Islam land by Christendom.