The early political career of Habib Bourguiba began in the early 1930s when he joined the main political party of the Tunisian national movement, the Destour. His political beginnings were characterized with a "battle" in newspapers such as L'Étandar Tunisien and La voix du Tunisien, while defending Tunisia's integrity and the preservation of its national identity. Shocked by the 1930 International Eucharistic Congress of Carthage, Bourguiba and his mates decided to start a press campaign to denounce the event. They soon acquired an unprecedented popularity, and stood out from the elders of Destour. They attracted the hostility of settlers, eager to put an end to their activism and press campaign. However, Bourguiba and his friends founded their own newspaper, despite the colonial attempts to stop them. L'Action Tunisienne was thus created in order to defend the "little people" in a context of economic crisis, following the Great Depression.
Bourguiba, worried about his country's state, knew that a good cause would revive the national movement, weakened by the 1926 repressions. In order to do so, he was the only one to defend M'hamed Chenik, a Tunis notable, who had been in trouble with the Residence, the French colonial administration. Bourguiba jumped at the chance to rally the bourgeoisie class to the nationalist cause. But his attempt failed and ended up dividing L'Action team. In this context, the uprising following the Tunisian naturalization issue, in early 1933, was the perfect opportunity for him. He started another successful press campaign. With his friends Tahar Sfar, Mahmoud El Materi, Bahri Guiga and his brother M'hamed, they sensitized lower classes to their cause and changed the Residence policy. The popularity he acquired during the event, led to his election as a member of the executive committee of the Destour, in May 1933. However, differences with the elders caused him to resign from the party in September 1933.
First steps in politics
Challenging the protectorate
In the early 1930s, Bourguiba joined the Destour party, then the major political organization of the Tunisian national movement. He rose to its leadership along with Mahmoud El Materi, Bahri Guiga, Tahar Sfar and his brother M'hamed. As preparations took place to host French President Paul Doumer as part of the celebrations of the 50th anniversary of the protectorate, nationalists were not pleased. In an article he wrote in Le Croissant, a newspaper managed by his cousin Abdelaziz El-Aroui, Bourguiba denounced the festivities as a "humiliating affront to the dignity of the Tunisian people to whom France recalls the loss of freedom and independence".
Following these events, the Destour leadership gathered in an emergency meeting at the Hôtel d'Orient in February 1931. It was decided to constitute a supporting committee for Chedly Khairallah's weekly newspaper, La Voix du Tunisien, which became a daily. The young nationalists joined the team and wrote critical analyses of the protectorate. Bourguiba, unlike his elders, dared to challenge the protectorate, publishing numerous articles and defining his own views on the colonial administration. He questioned both its effects and existence, writing:
La Voix du Tunisien became a very popular newspaper because of the originality with which Bourguiba, Sfar, Guiga and Materi addressed problems. They stood out from their Destour elders by their new ways of thinking. Bourguiba reckoned the end of the protectorate as the outcome of an evolution that had taken its roots in the very principles of French civilization, unlike Abdelaziz Thâalbi, who thought of it as a breakup, in an article he wrote in La Tunisie martyre. Referred to as the "four musketeers", they were in favor of the intangibility of national personality and political sovereignty of the Tunisian people with a progressive emancipation of the country, while advocating for a nationalism that struggled against a regime and not a civilization.
Their work soon attracted the interest of both public opinion and wealthy landowners and businessmen () who had a strong influence on the colonial administration. Hostile to their daring plea, the wrote in La Tunisie française: "Mr Bourguiba proposes to transform the Destourian lament into a doctoral thesis in law. The claims are not modest [...] They must be demanded to tone down their Voix du Tunisien". During the conference he held in November 1973, Bourguiba related the events of his beginnings in journalism and the success of his articles:
The were successful in their attempts to silence the nationalist papers as the colonial administration censored An-Nahdha, the daily paper of the reformist party and the weekly Ez-Zohra, on May 12, 1931. Within days, Habib and M'hamed Bourguiba, Bahri Guiga, Salah Farhat and Mahmoud El Materi were sued. Chedli Khalledi, a member of the Destour party, alerted Marius Moutet and Gaston Bergery, chief of staff to Édouard Herriot, who were friends of the nationalists and had influence in Paris. Bergery quickly interfered, contacted the head of the African-Orient department in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and obtained an adjournment of their hearings to June 9, 1931. Awaiting trial, the editors of La Voix du Tunisien launched a press protest campaign whose tone was both violent and revolutionary. El Materi wrote: "When we started political action, we knew in advance what was awaiting us [...] May the hand that strikes me be heavy, may the judges that charge me be ruthless [...] A cause that does not engender martyrs is lost in advance."
On the day of trial, the streets that led to the court were full of people. Shops and stores of the medina quarter were closed and law enforcement could not handle the turmoil. The crowd carried them in triumph as their hearings were, once again, postponed. Fearing overthrow, François Manceron, then-resident-general, met with Chedly Khairallah, manager of La Voix du Tunisien, at his residence in La Marsa, to find a compromise. That very afternoon, he invited the drafting committee of the newspaper and declared that he had an interview, that morning, with Khairallah. He also announced that a compromise was found. This lie made mischief within the group. Bourguiba asked Khairallah for further clarifications and he confirmed the rendezvous with the resident-general. In response the drafting committee demanded the management of the daily journal but, upon Khairallah's refusal to do so, decided to leave the newspaper.
Founding of L'Action Tunisienne
After they left the newspaper, the La Voix du Tunisien team kept in touch and gathered sometimes in the Café de la Kasbah or the Baghdad restaurant to discuss news and ideas, along with French and Tunisian socialist friends, such as the pharmacist Ali Bouhageb. During these meetings, the idea of creating a new newspaper was considered as they missed expressing their ideas. A drafting committee was formed that included Habib and M'hamed Bourguiba, Bahri Guiga, Tahar Sfar, Mahmoud El Materi and Ali Bouhageb, who also managed the publishing firm. Béchir Mehedhbi, a final year student, took charge of the editorial office. As for the newspaper headquarters, they were settled in the back of the Bouhageb pharmacy.
In the midst of an economic crisis that mainly affected lower classes, L'Action Tunisienne published its first edition on November 1, 1932. Bourguiba, who studied public finance during his university studies of political science in Paris, devoted his first article to the budget, which he called the "Tunisian budget". He explained his idea writing: "I used to demonstrate that budget reflected the policy of the government and that it permitted to believe that the country was thrown into abyss."
Disappointed in the resigned moderation of their elders, the young nationalists defended lower classes. Bouhajeb devoted an entire section of the newspaper for this purpose, which he called La Voix du guenillard, while the other members of the drafting committee wrote in turn in their editorials. Fed information through documents provided by administration officials, they soon became famous among the public. Bourguiba, who was increasingly known for his work, socialized with Tunisois notables and went frequently to intellectual discussion circles where he met the Boulakbeche family. He proved himself to be clear and specific in his writings, which revealed a "talented polemist" with his strong legal arguments. He was committed to demonstrate the mechanism of colonial abuse from the effects to the causes, showing a great interest in social phenomenon, inviting workers and students to organize in order to defended themselves against abuse. He also insisted on the defence and safeguard of the Tunisian personality, writing:
Reviving the National movement
The M'hamed Chenik case
In February 1933, a major fight within L'Action Tunisienne turned into a crisis, following the case of M'hamed Chenik, banker and chairman of the Tunisian Credit Union, which dominated the medina. In 1932, Chenik went to Paris as the vice-president of the Tunisian representatives of the Great Council, in order to alert the French government about the problems of indigenous agriculture. France decided to designate a committee chaired by Louis Tardy, manager of the National Agricultural Credit Fund, to investigate the situation in Tunisia. This move did not please the Residence which denounced the "convicted diligence" of Chenik. The colonial administration thus decided to seal his bank accounts. Despite this, there was no reaction in public opinion or among nationalists, even though the Tunisian members of the Great Council were collaborating with the protectorate. Only Bourguiba disapproved of the reaction of his friends, that he qualified as primary, writing: "I had there a first-hand witness who would give me weapons against the Protectorate and means to strengthen my position towards this regime. It was me who was winning in such a process. I did not care that some personalities improve their image at the same time."
Even though some people argued that Bourguiba acted out of personal interest, (he and his brother were tied to the bank by a loan), his aims were mainly related to reviving Tunisian nationalism. Chenik stated in an interview that any collaboration with France became impossible. Bourguiba saw in this case a victory that could rally the bourgeois class, considered to be collaborating with France, and unify the country around nationalism. He wrote: "We need to focus our attention on the event that had happened, on the argument which had been offered, so that we could widen our movement to important social classes of the nation, once indifferent or hostile to our program".
To achieve his goal, he used "non-orthodox approaches". He went to L'Action headquarters to remove a critical part of his brother M'hamed, written in an article by Ali Bouhajeb, whom he did not inform. Bourguiba testified about his act in 1973 saying:
Supported by Guiga and M'hedhbi, Bouhajeb judged Bourguiba's attitude and that of the journal in this case to be "unacceptable" before the three handed over their resignations. One of them later testified that: "Curiously, this excited Bourguiba. He was crushed because Bouhajeb and Mehedbi took care of all the material details, but he was a man of challenge." Bourguiba then abandoned his lawyer's office and decided to manage the newspaper on his own.