Ahmed Bennour, unyielding opponent of the dictator Zine el Abidine Ben Ali, friend of Spain and champion of democracy and freedom in Tunisia, dies in France

With the death of Ahmed Bennour, the Tunisian people have lost one of their most intransigent defenders and a great statesman. Discreet, simple and extremely cultivated, the former Secretary of State for Security and Defence, and head of the Special Services under Habib Bourguiba, was the main artisan in uniting the opposition to Ben Ali's police dictatorship. Thanks to his tireless work, Islamists, liberals, republicans, democrats and Marxist revolutionaries managed to overcome ideological quarrels and unite to fight for a modern and democratic rule of law in Tunisia. 

I met him in Paris, where I was able to interview him several times until he repeatedly invited me to his modest flat near the Champs Elysées, thanks to the mediation of my friend, journalist and fierce opponent of the dictator General Ben Ali, Slim Bagga. Slim Bagga, with his newspaper La Audacia, led the media fight against the Tunisian dictatorship, while his friend Bennour was determined to organise the political resistance. Two facets for the same objective.

Ahmed Bennour was a great friend of Spain, an admirer of the Spanish political transition, and a fervent student of great statesmen. During his 14 years of exile in Paris, Bennour did not hesitate to seek the support and understanding of democratic European countries in support of his struggle for a Tunisia of justice and human rights. In this way, he held several meetings with diplomatic representatives of the Spanish Embassy in Paris, in order to make known the desert crossing of the Tunisian militancy. In the company of my wife Nuria, we had the pleasure of being invited to eat at his home, where the hosts, his wife and daughter, received us with the hospitality typical of the peoples of the Maghreb. From these pages we send them our affection and encouragement in the face of the pain of the loss of their husband and father. 

All the Tunisian press, without exception, and the French press specialising in North African affairs, have reported the death of Ahmed Bennour. He will be remembered as a tireless fighter, a politician who was uncompromising in his principles, a statesman in the broadest sense of the word, and an affable man with an infectious smile and an ironic, scrutinising gaze. An example that has left its mark.