Every day, dozens of cases of asphyxia are reported in Gabès. Overcrowded clinics can no longer accommodate all the patients suffering from fainting spells, and respiratory, dermatological and pulmonary diseases are on the increase. The air, soil and water are seriously polluted, small-scale fishing is in decline, and dozens of marine species die daily, washed up lifeless on beaches.
The city of Gabès is experiencing a veritable environmental catastrophe. Gas leaks from the chemical complex release toxic substances - sulfur, ammonia - while huge quantities of phosphogypsum are discharged into the sea. In 2023, President Kaïs Saïed's government declared that this material was "neither radioactive nor dangerous to health", deliberately ignoring scientific studies warning of its harmfulness, as well as the evidence visible to the naked eye of the massive deposits staining beaches and coastal waters.
Even Kaïs Saïed, usually adept at bombastic formulas and grandiloquent metaphors, had recognized some time ago that this was a "veritable assassination of health and the environment in Gabès", describing what was taking place there as a "state crime". But when residents took to the streets to denounce this catastrophe, the government's response was repression: dozens of people were arrested, and tear gas was used on a massive scale, affecting neighborhoods and homes.
This brutality did not dampen the determination of the residents. On October 21, 2025, a general strike called by the Regional Labor Union - supported by numerous civil and professional organizations - brought together over one hundred thousand people, demanding the dismantling of the chemical complex's polluting units.
The crisis in Gabès - and, more broadly, in Tunisia - is not just ecological: it's also political and moral. The official discourse of those in power has become the object of mockery, particularly on social networks and in the public arena, so disconnected is it from reality. The Minister of Public Works explained that the shutdown of the complex's anti-pollution system was due to a spare part costing... 15,000 dinars (around 4,000 euros). As for the Minister of Health, he proposed as a "solution" the construction of a hospital for cancer patients in Gabès, to accommodate the victims of the pollution.
But once again it was Kaïs Saïed who stood out. After the major mobilizations of October 21, 2025, he summoned his head of government in the early hours of the morning. Sitting submissively in front of him, she listened to him ramble on: he talked about everything - Arab satirical poets, a national hero executed by colonialism, the young people of "Generation Z" whom he mocked - except the Gabès tragedy. As usual, he attacked the "traitors" and "plotters" whom "the people have vomited out" and whom he promises to "punish". But what does all this have to do with the daily poisoning of the people of Gabès? What has he heard of the cries of distress from his fellow citizens? What concrete measures does he propose to put an end to the catastrophe, or at the very least, limit its effects?
We know the answers. Since the beginning of his solitary reign, Kaïs Saïed has shown one constant: when he proves incapable of resolving political, economic or social crises - which is now the norm - he diverts attention with accusations of conspiracy, threats against opponents and confused speeches full of hollow metaphors and invective against imaginary enemies. On the other side, he invokes an abstract "people" who are supposed to accompany him in a "process" whose disastrous outcome for Tunisia is now clear to all.
What the country is experiencing today is not just a new form of authoritarianism: it's a profound crisis of governance. A president isolated from reality, concentrating all powers, leads a paralyzed state and institutions reduced to impotence. Tunisia has already experienced dictatorship, corruption, repression and the breakdown of the rule of law. But never before has it faced such a political vacuum: power that is impotent, resentful and cut off from the real world.
