“The young people you see here are neglected and have no food at home.
They go home and have nothing to eat.
People are unemployed, there is no wages, there is no money, where is the money?
We are being made false promises.
Politicians tell us that they will make us work, they silence us with words ”.
Like this resident of the popular Ettadhamen district, near the capital Tunis, many Tunisians, many of them young, have taken to the streets to express their anger and weariness in recent days as the country faces an economic crisis. , health and politics.
“It happens in a context of a long-standing economic crisis, with soaring unemployment rates.
You have the Covid-19 which creates even more frustrations and deprivation ", explains Aude-Annabelle Canesse, public policy advisor to international organizations and author of" Development policies in Tunisia ", published in 2014" Mini-markets and cash machines have been attacked, and therefore we realize that it is the cry of people in misery ”, supports Aude-Annabelle Canesse. From the end of last week, marked, on January 14, by Ten years since the beginning of the Tunisian revolution, demonstrations had started in several cities of the country.
At the beginning of the week, the police, then the reinforcement army, were deployed in numbers to dozens of localities to deal with the nightly protests.
In total, more than 600 people were arrested.
Disappointed with the 2011 revolution
Since Tuesday, protesters have continued to gather despite health restrictions.
“I came today because 10 years after the revolution, I don't have the feeling that there are things that are changing.
On the contrary, there is a feeling of deep disappointment, in addition to the pandemic, poverty, unemployment and the situation we are experiencing as young people, ”explains Donia, a student in Tunis.
According to figures from the Tunisian National Institute of Statistics, the unemployment rate in the last quarter of 2020 was 16%.
