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To say that Kaïs Saïed disturbs Western chancelleries is an understatement. In private, diplomats pout and roll their eyes, bewildered, disconcerted by a political project that seems to them to doom Tunisia to the throes of the unknown. Officially, the language is of course more sanitized. A word comes back, haunting: “preoccupied”. Since the exceptional regime that the Head of State established on July 25, 2021 on the grounds of a “imminent peril”, his work of methodically dismantling the institutions resulting from the 2014 Constitution inspires reproving press releases at regular intervals. Europeans therefore say to themselves “concerned”, but no more. The Americans, more critical, add an adverb: “deeply concerned”.
A sequence of relations between Tunisia and the West has indeed come to an end. With the personal and unpredictable adventure of Kaïs Saïed, the beautiful story of this Tunisia “democratic model” of the Arab world, crowned with the 2015 Nobel Peace Prize, has come to an end. Admittedly, its star had begun to fade before the election of Kaïs Saïed in 2019, when the country suffered from socio-economic stagnation and institutional paralysis. The disenchantment is now frank and open, at a time when the July 25 referendum on the new Constitution will consecrate the return to a hyper-presidentialism fraught with autocratic danger.
The Head of State does not seem to be overly moved by this erosion of Tunisia’s external image. On the contrary, he takes public opinion to witness to exalt the “sovereignty” national It front of “foreign interference”. This type of posture suits Arab nationalism, of which he wants to be the heir. “Let them take care of their gondolas!” », he had thus scolded in his palace in Carthage after the publication of a report by the Venice Commission – an advisory body of the Council of Europe –, seized for an opinion by Brussels on the conditions for the organization of the referendum. The commission’s experts had concluded that it was not “not realistic” to plan to organize “credibly and legitimately” such consultation “in the absence of clear rules”.
“We are a little trapped”
The chancelleries ended up getting used to this president with his erratic mood – for lack of an alternative. While the Americans are starting to betray some impatience – military aid could be cut in half for the 2022-2023 fiscal year – the Europeans are holding firm in their resolve to continue supporting Tunisia whatever they think of the person. of the head of state.
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