Masmoudi, Mohammed

He was the 13th child in the family of a fisherman.

He graduated from Sadiqi College in the city of Tunis, then studied philosophy, literature and political science at the University of Paris , and became president of the Tunisian Student Association and the local party cell. since he joined Habib Bourguiba in his “New Destur” party in his youth, in 1953 he was briefly delayed by the French authorities of the protectorate. In 1953 he was expelled from France for political activities.

In 1955, he was elected a member of the Politburo of the New Destur Party. After Tunisia gained autonomy in 1954, he was appointed state minister in the ministry of economics, in 1955 - minister of economy and trade. He was a member of the Tunisian delegation that participated in the closing ceremony of the French protectorate.

After independence in April 1956 - by the Minister of State in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In 1957 he was elected Politburo of the Socialist Party “Destur”, in 1958 he was briefly removed from its composition, and in 1959 he was reinstated. He played for the inner-party balance between socialists and liberals.

In 1957-1959 - Ambassador to Czechoslovakia, in 1959-1961. - Minister of Information, simultaneously in 1960-1961. served as Minister of Tourism. However, he again fell into disgrace with President Bourguibe because of his rapprochement with the editorial staff of the Paris-American magazine Wien Afrik, published in Paris. After a certain time, he managed to restore his position: in 1965-1970. - Ambassador to France.

In 1970-1974 - Minister of Foreign Affairs of Tunisia. During this period, diplomatic relations were established with the GDR (December 1972). More than his predecessors, he gave priority to the pan-Arab vector. The most notable stage in his career was the project to create the Arab Islamic Republic (1974) and he also served as the cause of his political collapse. The Tunisian-Libyan Union met with strong opposition within the ruling party and Prime Minister Hedi Nuira . Under this pressure, President Bourguiba refused to sign the signed agreements three days after their conclusion. In January 1974, their initiator was removed from his post as Minister of Foreign Affairs, and the 9th Congress of the Socialist Party “Destur” was expelled from the party.

He was accused of taking bribes from the French side and was forced to emigrate to France. The cost of his Paris hotel was paid by Libya, from Libya in 1977, he supported the trade union movement of Tunisia, which protested against the Bourguiba regime. In 1977, he published in the book "The Arabs in the Storm" a long open letter to President Bourguibe. He was arrested upon his return to Tunisia and remained under house arrest until 1980. After publicly distancing himself from Muammar Gaddafi in 1980, he was released and exiled to Libya. In 1984, Gaddafi offered him the post of Libyan representative to the UN, but Masmoudi did not want to lose his Tunisian citizenship. After the Bourguiba displacement, he returned to Tunisia in 1987, but did not play any role until the Jasmine Revolution (2010/2011).

Since 2010, he lived in the United Arab Emirates .

• https://www.munzinger.de/search/document?index=mol-00&id=00000009425&type=text/html&query.key=q3E46YSm&template=/publikationen/personen/document.jsp&preview=
• Gustav Fochler-Hauke ​​(Hrsg.): Der Fischer Weltalmanach 1971, Seite 178. Frankfurt am Main 1970
• Robin Leonard Bidwell: Dictionary of Arab Modern History, Seite 268. London / New York 1998