Background
Mohamed Masmoudi was born on May 29, 1925, son of a fisherman at Mahdia on the Mediterranean coast 110 miles south-east of Tunis.
Mohamed Masmoudi was born on May 29, 1925, son of a fisherman at Mahdia on the Mediterranean coast 110 miles south-east of Tunis.
Educated first at Sadiki College, Tunis, then at the Sorbonne and the Institute of Political Science in Paris.
An ardent nationalist from his youth, he became student leader of the Neo Destour Party in Paris in 1945 and was liaison officer with Moroccan and Algerian nationalists. Arrested in 1953, he was held in a military prison in Paris and then transferred to a civilian jail in Tunis. On his release a few months later he slipped back to Paris.
At 29 he entered the first government of Tahar Ben Ammar in August 1954 as Minister of State and took part in the negotiations in Paris for self-government. In September 1955 he was made Minister of Commerce and Planning and two months later he was elected to the party Political Bureau. In the Bourguiba government formed in April 1956 he was appointed Minister of State again and went to Paris for further negotiations with the French government.
In March 1957 he was sent to Paris as Ambassador. After 11 months he returned to Tunis in protest against the French bombing of the Tunisian village of Sakiet on February 8, 1958. Then came a clash with Bourguiba over the banning of the newspaper “L’Action” and he was expelled from the Destour Socialist Party. Within a few months he patched up the quarrel and was restored to the party Political Bureau in March 1959.
He won a seat in the National Assembly in November 1959 and was elected Mayor of Mahdia after the municipal elections. The following year he became Secretary of State for Information and he led the Tunisian delegation to Moscow for the International Film Festival.
His second clash with Bourguiba occurred in October 1961 over an article he wrote about the cult of personality. Out he went into the political wilderness for three years before winning his way back into favour. In February 1965 he was appointed
Ambassador to Paris again. In August 1965 he was elected a member of the Central Committee of the Destour Socialist Party. Re-elected to the party Political Bureau in January 1968 he was made assistant secretary in November 1969.
After seeing a lot of Bourguiba during the President's convalescence in France in 1969 and 1970 he impressed his leader so much that he was appointed Foreign Minister in succession to Habib Bourguiba Junior. Since then he has made his mark in many capitals and at several international conferences. He has issued frequent warnings about the changing balance of power in the Mediterranean through the expansion of the Soviet fleet. Visiting Peking in August 1972 he signed the first agreement on economic and technical cooperation between Tunisia and China.
A born politician writh all the grass-roots knowledge of an experienced party pragmatist and the diplomatic polish of an ambassador with a diploma in Political Science. Not afraid to speak out sometimes too eagerly even on one occasion at the cost of expulsion from the party. As an independent-minded writer he likes to set out his ideas boldly and once lost his place in the govern-ment as a result.
An ability to charm, driving ambition, and a rare capacity for hard work enabled him to get back into power. Although a Francophile, looking to the West more than the East, he has spent much of his time improving Tunisia’s relations with her Arab neighbours.