Bourguiba, Habib

(1903–2000) was a Tunisian statesman who became the first president of the Republic of Tunisia from 1957 to 1987. In 1934, he co-founded the Neo Destour (New Constitutional Liberal Party), which spearheaded the Tunisian movement for independence. He was arrested and exiled several times by the occupying French protectorate. Following the country’s independence in 1956, Bourguiba declared the republic of which he served as first president, focusing on building a modern Tunisian state. His then prime minister, Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, removed him from power in 1987. The statue of Bourguiba by Raymond Martin (1957), in the centre of Tunis, was dismantled and transferred to a port three miles outside the town, at the place where Bourguiba landed in 1955.
In 2016 the statue was reinstalled in Tunis.