Tunis – On 3 September, the Tunisian General Labour Union (UGTT), the National Order of Lawyers, and the Tunisian League for Human Rights launched a joint coordination framework, bringing together three of the four organisations awarded the 2015 Nobel Peace Prize for brokering Tunisia’s national dialogue.
The statement was signed at UGTT headquarters by Salaheddine Salmi, the union’s secretary general, Boubaker Bethabet, head of the bar association, and Bassem Trifi, president of the human rights league.
It called for dialogue, stronger protection of rights and freedoms, and a review of economic and social policies, citing shortages of medicine, water, electricity, and falling purchasing power.
The framework, led by the UGTT, the country’s largest union with more than a million members, has since grown to nine organisations, which have called a national march in Tunis on 17 October, blaming the authorities for worsening living conditions and shrinking freedoms.
Their alliance comes five years after President Kais Saied suspended parliament and began ruling by decree, years in which unions, lawyers, and rights defenders have each come under mounting pressure.
The founders present the framework as a civil society platform that will stay closed to political parties. Analysts say the march will put the new alliance to an early test, as these organisations seek to turn shared grievances into sustained pressure.
The founding statement, titled “Tunisia First, and the People Above All Else,” described a deep political, economic, and social crisis that has widened poverty and pushed up unemployment.
Official figures from the National Institute of Statistics put unemployment at 14.9 per cent in the second quarter of 2026, with more than a third being young people.
Meanwhile, inflation rose for a second consecutive month in September, to 5.6 per cent, with food prices up 8.4 per cent.
Saied in late April pointed to his government’s policy of self-reliance, arguing that Tunisia had the resources and national expertise to drive its own development without relying on foreign dictates.
He has also opposed the privatisation of public institutions, framing state control of key sectors as part of his broader approach to economic sovereignty.
A 2026 report by the Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy argues, however, that public anger has grown as government promises have failed to translate into improvements in daily life, while pressure on foreign currency reserves has contributed to shortages of food and medicine.
Why now?
Anger had spilt into the streets this summer, from protests over power and water cuts during a July heatwave to a rally of thousands in Tunis on 25 July, the anniversary of Saied’s power grab.
Fuel tanker drivers are among the latest to walk out, after transport companies deducted social security contributions from their wages without paying them into the national fund, leaving the drivers unregistered and their families without the health booklets that cover treatment and medicines, according to Slouane Smiri, an assistant secretary general of the UGTT.
Slim Sahimi, secretary general of the UGTT’s General Federation of Petroleum and Chemicals, told The New Arab that the drivers first stopped work spontaneously in August over unpaid social security dues and allowances agreed in May 2019.
“The UGTT intervened to calm the situation in return for a working session with the relevant ministry, which never took place, so the union carried out a strike on September 23,” he said.
Badie Mbarek, a senior UGTT official, said the framework was driven by the mounting economic and social pressures facing workers, including rising living costs, declining purchasing power and deteriorating public services.
“Workers are living a difficult reality because of the deteriorating economic and social conditions and the lack of clarity in the policies pursued by the current authorities, along with the decline of freedoms and their restriction through several decrees, such as Decree 54,” he told The New Arab.
Zied Dabbar, president of the National Union of Tunisian Journalists (SNJT), warned in January that Decree 54, a 2022 cybercrime law, was increasingly used against journalists and citizens and had become a tool for criminalising opinion, despite Justice Minister Leila Jaffel’s assurance to parliament in November 2025 that it had been applied only in cases of defamation, slander, and false news.
On 30 September, a day after the march was announced, Saied replaced the decree’s five-year prison term for a first offence with fines of 10,000 to 20,000 dinars ($3,370 to $6,740), though the SNJT wants it repealed.
Mbarek said the recent presidential decree reflected the result of months of the UGTT’s efforts to assert its national role and defend workers’ interests. He argued that the union’s involvement in the emerging framework was part of a broader effort to address the economic and social pressures facing Tunisians.
“The union, he added, “will remain a supporter of the interests of its members and of the Tunisian people.”
From statements to the streets
Six organisations joined the movement on 29 September, including the General Union of Tunisian Students (UGET), the Tunisian Association of Democratic Women, the Union of Unemployed Graduates, the Tunisian Organisation of Young Doctors, the Tunisian Forum for Economic and Social Rights, and the SNJT.
Mbarek had said the UGTT was open to new members but ruled out political parties.
“This framework will include only civil society organisations that aim to serve the national interest and have no political agenda,” he told The New Arab.
For UGET, joining was a natural step, said its deputy secretary-general, Liwa al-Nabli, pointing to shrinking freedoms, a worsening economy that weighs on all students, and a troubled start to the academic year in teaching, transport, and university housing.
Students are a core part of society, he said, and the student movement has defended the interests of Tunisians since the colonial era.
“For some time, UGET members have faced repeated harassment, on campus through referrals to disciplinary councils and off campus through arrests, because of their union and political activity,” al-Nabli told The New Arab. “Particularly during protests in defence of the Palestinian cause and boycott campaigns.”
Who gets a seat?
Iyed al-Mabrouk, a student activist, welcomed the UGET’s decision to join, arguing that the student movement’s role should not be confined to the faculty and calling the move a true embodiment of the slogan “the student movement is an inseparable part of the popular movement”.
Sameh al-Aouiti, another activist, accuses the organisers of deliberately excluding several organisations, among them the Tunisian General Union of Students (UGTE).
“That is unacceptable, because the UGTE has led most national mobilisations,” he said, citing its rejection on 28 September 2024 of an electoral amendment that stripped the administrative court of its power over election disputes before that year’s presidential vote.
The UGTE, historically close to the Islamist Ennahda movement, issued its own statement objecting to not being invited to the coordination meeting and describing the move as an exclusionary approach at odds with the values of freedom and democracy.
Haythem al-Aouni, a Tunisian political activist and blogger, told The New Arab that the framework is important because it now unites rights defenders, lawyers, and workers with students, the unemployed, and the feminist movement.
“When nine organisations meet, we are no longer talking only about politics in its narrow sense, but about the state, society, rights, and social justice,” he said.
He also called for opening space for young people within parties, civil society, and institutions, and for giving them a real chance to run for office and take part in decision-making.
“Tunisia today needs shared spaces like these,” he said, “because the danger is not in disagreement, but in disagreement turning into a reason to obstruct dialogue.”