The Tunisian Ministry of Foreign Affairs affirmed on Wednesday, May 31 that the question of ” rights and freedoms ” had not been addressed during a meeting between the heads of Tunisian and French diplomacy, taking issue with a press release from the Quai d’Orsay.
In a press release reporting on a meeting on Tuesday in Paris between French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna and her Tunisian counterpart Nabil Ammar, the Quai d’Orsay said that the meeting “was an opportunity to recall the attachment of France to public rights and freedoms everywhere in the world”. But a source at the Tunisian Ministry of Foreign Affairs told AFP that “the question of rights and freedoms was not discussed during the meeting”.
Authoritarian drift
In a statement, the Tunisian ministry said that Nabil Ammar had stressed during the interview that “Tunisia’s main challenge remains that of economic recovery, and that any skeptical message or negative attitude will only further complicate the improvement of socio-economic conditions in the country”. Several local and international NGOs denounce a sharp decline in freedoms in Tunisia since President Kaïs Saïed assumed full powers on July 25, 2021. But human rights defenders consider France’s position with regard to what they describe as an “authoritarian drift” by the Tunisian president: according to them, French diplomacy is part of a long tradition of Tunisia, indebted to about 80% of its GDP, obtained an agreement in principle from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in mid-October for a loan of almost 2 billion dollars, in order to help it overcome a serious financial crisis and lack of liquidity. But talks are deadlocked, due to a lack of firm commitment from Tunis to restructure dozens of heavily indebted public companies and to lift subsidies on certain basic products. Europe is concerned about the lack of progress and a possible collapse of the Tunisian economy likely to increase the departure of migrants to European shores. Tunisia, some stretches of coastline of which are less than 150 km from the Italian island of Lampedusa,
