The Events of Ramada (February 19 – May 25, 1958)
The battle for sovereignty, which was launched by Habib Bourguiba in his speech in Tataouine on June 18, 1956, immediately after Tunisia gained its full independence, went through several stages and accumulations that contributed to creating the conditions for the evacuation of the last French soldier from Tunisian soil on October 15, 1963. The events of Ramada (February 19-May 25, 1958), which led to the signing of the June 17, 1958 agreement to evacuate French forces from their bases, except for Bizerte, was an important step towards achieving full evacuation. Despite the importance of these events in Tunisia’s contemporary history, they remained on the margins of academic research, and historical studies did not address them except incidentally when dealing with the issue of evacuation, unlike the events of Saqiya[1] and the Battle of Bizerte[2]. In the national historical memory, these events have been reduced to the anniversary of the “Battle of Ramada”, which is celebrated on May 25 of every year, and the press devotes some articles to it, which are sometimes not without historical errors[3]. This prompted us to address these events and trace their details and their role in the evacuation of French troops from Tunisian soil by relying on a code of written and oral sources to compare them and correct some of the errors that were common in the official and popular narratives and avoid exaggerations and even some fallacies, so that we can get closer to the historical truth
