The movement of notables in Tunisia June 8, 1883 - February 22, 1885 A historical study

Abstract

This study sheds light on the first political movement with social dimensions that started in Tunisia shortly after the French occupation of Tunisia in 1881, due to the policy of the French Resident General, which reached the point of interfering in the Islamic beliefs of the Tunisian people when he imposed fees on the burial of the dead in Muslim cemeteries and excluded other sects from that procedure, in addition to burdening the shoulders of the common people with fees and taxes, which created a state of political instability and popular unrest that led to the emergence of the movement of notables who confronted those arbitrary measures despite the brutality and abuse that the movement was met with by the French authorities. Despite that, the young movement proved the cohesion of the Tunisian Arab people with all their intellectual and social trends, and religious scholars and jurists were the first to call for the legitimacy of the demands and declared standing as one in the face of the French occupier, who eventually submitted to the demands of the people and fulfilled all the conditions, the first of which was the movement of notables and retreated from his internal policy and found that understanding and agreement are better than brutality and force.