He was enthroned in unusual circumstances following the removal of his predecessor Muhammad VII al Munsif by the French Resident General Henri Giraud in 1943.

[17] In August 1946 when the capital was at a standstill during a general strike to protest the arrest of several nationalists, he feigned ill-health to cancel the ceremony of kissing hands which he was due to hold for Eid al-Fitr,[18] but when he passed through the streets of Tunis in February 1947 on the Mawlid festival, he could readily see his subjects' indifference.

[25] However this was a turning point for his reign, as the possibility of Moncef Bey's restoration was now removed, and for the first time, his people began to regard him as their legitimate ruler.

The Bey worked clandestinely with Habib Bourguiba and Salah Ben Youssef to raise demands for Tunisian self-government and during the period 1948–1951 was able to put the French authorities under considerable pressure.

Deprived of the support of his ministers, on 28 March the Bey eventually gave way and signed the decree naming De Hauteclocque's nominee Slaheddine Baccouche as his Grand Vizier.

With all his ministers and advisers in prison, Lamine Bey relied on the counsel and support of the trade union leader Farhat Hached, but in December 1952 he was assassinated by extremist French settlers of La Main Rouge.

[29] Unable to resist de Hauteclocque any longer, Lamine Bey eventually signed the decrees on limited internal autonomy which had been formulated months previously in Paris, thereby allowing new municipal elections.

However Voizard's instructions from the French government made the relative calm only temporary – he was to pursue a reform policy with the Bey only, but not with the Neo Destour.

Bitter at the defeat of his efforts, the Bey confided to Voizard 'For a year, since I have been asking for Bourguiba to be released or transferred to a spa, I have received nothing but threats.

It is hard for us to recall the painful days that all of Tunisia has lived through.... before this decisive step in our national life, we must stand equal to our destiny in offering to the world the spectacle of a united people marching serenely towards progress.

For France, the experience of the failed Mzali government highlighted the futility of hoping to evolve political institutions by means of negotiating only with the Bey.

To recover some semblance of his former influence, on 10 August he proposed to the French government that the institution of the beylicate should be replaced with a full monarchy, which would give him the authority he felt was appropriate.

Having crossed the capital in triumph, Bourguiba visited the Bey in Carthage, apparently unmindful of having returned his decoration only a few months before,[44] and made a stirring declaration of the deep attachment felt by the Tunisian people towards beylical rule.

The French had already transferred authority over the police force from the Resident General to the Tunisian government, whose ministers had been chosen by Bourguiba, so Ben Youssef's representations to the Bey had no effect.

On 2 December the Bey summoned the Resident General (now known as the High Commissioner) Roger Seydoux to remind him of France's responsibility for public order—which in fact it no longer had.

[48] As his appeals had no effect he made use of the only power remaining to him and refused to apply his seal to the decrees authorizing the forthcoming elections and the appointment of local governors and mayors.

The only effect was to enrage Bourguiba, who hastened to the palace to accuse the Bey and his family of seeking to hinder the transfer of power from France to the Tunisian government.

[50] On 20 March 1956 the Franco-Tunisian protocol was signed by the Grand Vizier Tahar Ben Ammar and the French Foreign Minister Christian Pineau.

It was a sign of the changing times that the King presided over the session dressed in the uniform of a marshal of the Ottoman Empire, whose subject he had been when he was born, but which had ceased to exist in 1922.

He expected to be present during the debates leading to the election of a speaker of the Assembly, and Prime Minister Tahar Ben Ammar had to intervene to persuade him to leave.

[52] Although this abruptly ended the civil list payments to members of his family and placed the crown estate under government control, the King signed the decree without protest.

[54] Further decrees followed, compelling the King to turn over various properties to the state, against the backdrop of a hostile press campaign highlighting the questionable, and perhaps even criminal, circumstances under which they had been acquired.

In the course of this, hearing the name of his father spoken, the King reacted again, saying Allah Yarhamou (May God save his soul) clearly out loud as he left the room.

They were then transferred to a small villa in La Soukra with a kitchen, a bathroom and two other rooms and given a monthly allowance of 80 dinars, roughly the same as the salary of a secondary school teacher.

[64] On 8 September the trial of Tahar Ben Ammar came to an end, having worked up the public mood with accusations made, and later withdrawn, about the who possessed the jewels which had belonged to the Bey's wife, which had still not been found.

[65] Summoned to the national security headquarters Lamine's wife was interrogated relentlessly for three days to the point where she could no longer speak and suffered an apoplexy[66] as her son Salah Eddine recalled years later.

'As for mother, she never recovered from her arrest and most of all from the three days of interrogation on the fourth floor of the Ministry of the Interior, where the security forces questioned her endlessly about what happened to the family jewels.

He left the villa in La Soukra and moved into the apartment of a Jewish friend in the Rue de Yougoslavie, who had already taken in Ahmed El Kassar, husband of Princess Soufia as well as the family of Prince Salah Eddine when they were expelled from the palace.

He was buried in the cemetery of Sidi Abdelaziz next to his wife, unlike most rulers of his family who were interred in the mausoleum of Tourbet el Bey in the medina of Tunis.

[67] Sheikh Muhammad al-Tahir ibn Ashur said the prayers over his body and a single photographer, Victor Sebag, recorded the event, and was held overnight in a police cell for doing so.