Habib Bourguiba trained as a lawyer in Paris before returning to Tunisia and, in 1934, breaking from the older Destour Party to found the Neo Destour, a disciplined mass movement built on party cells and an alliance with the trade union federation (UGTT). Repeatedly arrested and exiled by French authorities over the following two decades, Bourguiba oversaw a campaign combining political mobilisation, diplomacy and, from 1952, armed resistance by the fellagha. France's mounting colonial difficulties — the loss of Indochina in 1954 and the outbreak of the Algerian war later that year — led the new French government under Pierre Mendes France to grant Tunisia internal autonomy in July 1954, opening negotiations that culminated in the Franco-Tunisian Protocol of 20 March 1956, recognising Tunisian independence. Bourguiba, released from detention, became prime minister under the nominal rule of Bey Muhammad VIII al-Amin. In July 1957 Bourguiba's Constituent Assembly abolished the monarchy and proclaimed the Tunisian Republic, with Bourguiba as its first president. He ruled for three decades, pursuing secularising social reforms (including a landmark 1956 Code of Personal Status expanding women's rights) and a pragmatic, pro-Western foreign policy, until he was declared medically unfit and deposed in a bloodless 1987 palace coup by his prime minister, Zine El Abidine Ben Ali.
- Lived: 1903 CE – 2000 CE
- Nationality: tunisian
- Roles: Founder and leader of the Neo Destour party (1934-1987), Prime Minister of Tunisia (1956-1957), First President of Tunisia (1957-1987)
