Symbolic Date of May 12, 1964: A Celebration of Tunisia's Liberation

Today, May 12, 2026, Tunisians and Tunisian women celebrated a cherished holiday dear to the hearts of all patriots who believed in the people's ability to reclaim their pillaged lands for nearly a quarter of a century by French colonizers and consecrate their agricultural sovereignty, a necessary condition for the effective consecration of national independence.

On May 12, 1964, the late leader Habib Bourguiba signed the supreme law authorizing the nationalization of agricultural state lands and establishing agricultural evacuation, freely and in full sovereignty, on the same table where Sadok Bey signed the Bardo Treaty on May 12, 1881, which established French protectorate in Tunisia. This law restored to Tunisians the legitimate feeling of pride in disposing of their country's riches, which unfortunately, due to unfortunate historical circumstances, particularly during the cursed Beylical era, had made the owners of beautiful lands become "khamasas" on their own "henchirs".

Today, we do not celebrate just any date. We celebrate an historic moment whose solemnity has been and is confirmed almost daily by the President of the Republic, Kaïs Saïed. This man, the worthy son of the "Green" who has succeeded in a short time and with the blessing of postmodern pedagogy in instilling in Tunisians the culture of pride and the propensity to take their country to the highest rungs of development and equitable progress, and also to restore the defects observed during the Bourguiba and Ben Ali eras, but above all throughout the decade of fire when extremists confiscated the destiny of Tunisia and stole the people's hopes.

In these days and at a time when we have freed ourselves from the diktat of renegades who replaced the colonizers, it is not our intention to claim that spring has settled permanently under our skies or to assert that all our problems have been resolved and that now the reclaimed agricultural state lands since the revolution and also since the advent of the 25-July process have allowed Tunisia to officially declare that it has reached its food self-sufficiency. Rather, it is a matter of an extreme urgency to mobilize all patriotic forces so that our agriculture and our reclaimed henchirs participate effectively in the rebirth of our farmers, the perpetuity of the profession, and the pursuit of the war against all "malignant spirits" that stand in the way of our redemption.

And the agricultural evacuation festival will intervene within two weeks or less of the celebration of Eid al-Adha, a privileged moment for Tunisians to taste again the joy and communion of sacrifice. These intense moments of joy and happiness, we will live them fully, having the feeling that our country has returned, forever, to itself, that we have reconciled with our sublime religion, and that the Head of State watches over the grain daily so that sovereignty, in all its forms and dimensions, imposes itself as a scientific reality.

Our hope is that, as an example, the henchirs of Enfidha and Chaâl, which have returned to the people, will effectively fulfill their mission as locomotives of agricultural promotion.

And this hope is all the more legitimate, realistic, and achievable as Tunisians preserve their confidence in their President's ability to eradicate the pockets of sedition that always undermine our civilizational project.