Wassila Ben Ammar

Wassila Bourguiba
Wassila Bourguiba in 1962
First Lady of Tunisia
In office 12 April 1962 – 11 August 1986
President	Habib Bourguiba
Preceded by	Moufida Bourguiba
Succeeded by	Naïma Ben Ali
Personal details
Born	1912
Died	June 22, 1999

Wassila Ben Ammar (Tunisian Arabic: وسيلة بن عمار‎), was born in 1912 in Béja and died on June 22, 1999 in La Marsa, Tunis. Wassila was the second spouse of the former Tunisian president Habib Bourguiba and the First Lady of Tunisia from 1962 until 1986. She was known by the name Majda (venerable).^[1]

Biography

Family, youth and marriage

She's the daughter of the lawyer Mhamed Ben Ammar. Her father belongs to a branch of a relatively impoverished family of the Tunisian bourgeoisie formerly composed of senior officials and large landowners. Her mother, Fatma Dellagi, belongs to the bourgeoisie to Tunis.^[2]

Wassila met Bourguiba for the first time on April, 12, in 1943, when she came to congratulate him for his release after five years of detention and ; "It was love at first sight" , wrote Habib Bourguiba in his autobiography My Life, My work. Wassila at that time had already a girl from a small landowner.

Through her budding relationship with Bourguiba, she notably influenced the abolition of the Bey-monarchy- regime and promoted the proclamation of a republic on July 25, 1957. Afterwards, she strongly supported Ahmed Ben Salah, who was appointed July 29, 1957 as Secretary of State for Public Health and Social Affairs, a position equivalent to that of minister.

Habib Bourguiba eventually married Wassila on April 12, 1962, a year after divorcing Moufida Bourguiba on July 21, 1961. The son of Habib Bourguiba and Moufida, Habib Bourguiba, Jr., has demonstrated a certain animosity toward his stepmother. Since she was from a family of traditional Tunisian bourgeoisie, which includes influential and rich men, some of Tunis ministers see in this marriage a way to detach Bourguiba ministers from the Tunisian Sahel from which Ben Salah originated. Indeed, her support for the latter did not last when he started gaining power.^[3]

A powerful and influential first lady

Picture from 1966 showing Wassila, president Bourguiba and their adopted daughter Hajer in the presidential palace of Carthage.

Wassila gradually became very influential in the presidential palace affairs of Carthage - she was called the " president " - even though Bourguiba seemingly kept her away from political affairs. According to the former minister Tahar Belkhodja, she was the one " who were in the anteroom premiers and all employees of the president."

She showed momentarily solidarity with the Prime Minister Hedi Nouira in his opposition to the proposed union between Tunisia and Libya in 1974, although overall both of them were dedicated mutual hostility according to Sadri Khiari.

In 1980, at the time of the attack against the city of Gafsa by an Arab nationalist commando, She acted to appoint Driss Guiga as Interior Minister and Mohamed Mzali as Prime Minister, while Mohamed Sayah was rather approached. She also named some of her friends in several positions in the government. For the parliamentary elections on 1 November 1981, first elections with the participation of several parties since the independence, she supported the operation of falsification of results to undermine the victory of the opposition , represented especially by the Movement of Socialist Democrats Ahmed Mestiri. She was also the main curator of the installation in Tunis headquarters of the Palestine Liberation Organization and its leader Yasser Arafat, after their evacuation from Beirut in 1982.^[4] Bourguiba, aging and ailing gave her more and more responsibilities in state affairs. Wassila then ubiquitous as she was "permanently connected to telephone conversations.^[5]" She then led to a review of the 1959 Constitution which provides that the Prime Minister is the legal successor to President. She contradicted this occasion her own husband in an interview for Jeune Afrique published February 28, 1982. But in 1983, Mzali sacked Tahar Belkhodja, then the information minister and friend of Wassila. A few months later broke the " bread riots ", which took place from December 27, 1983 to January 6, 1984; Minister Guiga, who she had contributed to appoint was dismissed.

Habib Bourguiba sharply announced the divorce with a simple press release, August 11, 1986 , while his wife was cured for several months in the United States.

End of life

Wassila moved later to Paris. Following the dismissal of her former husband on November 7, 1987, the Tunisian press announced that she had sent the new president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali a message « expressing her confidence in the new political leadership » and « satisfaction with the rendered respects to the former president. » After two and a half years of absence, she regained Tunisia in July 1988. She died June 22, 1999 and, unlike the first president's wife, she was not buried in Bourguida mausoleum in Monastir.^[6]

She is notably the aunt of Tarak Ben Ammar and the great-mother of Yasmine Tordjman-Besson, became the wife of the French Minister Eric Besson.

References

1. Tahar, Belkhodja. Les trois décennies Bourguiba. Témoignageéditeur=Publisud (in French). Paris: 1998. p. 14. ISBN 978-2-866-00787-4.
2. (French) Samy Ghorbal, « Que reste-t-il des grandes familles ? », Jeune Afrique, 18 juin 2007
3. Mohsen Toumi, La Tunisie de Bourguiba à Ben Ali, coll. « Politique d'aujourd’hui », éd. Presses universitaires de France, Paris, 1989, p. 125 ISBN 978-2-130-42804-6
4. (French) « Wassila Ben Ammar », Le Monde, 25 juin 1999
5. Tahar Belkhodja, op. cit., p. 174
6. (French) Philippe Bernard, « Le Libérateur », Arabies, mars 2006