President of Tunisia may in exceptional circumstances put certain draft laws to a referendum. Article 87 specifies that the president enjoys legal immunity while in office. Since the promulgation of a republican constitution in June 1959, three years after gaining independence from France, Tunisia has had just three directly elected presidents. The first president was Habib Bourguiba, who became the country's first president after the proclamation of a republic in 1957; he had been the country's de facto leader as prime minister since independence in 1956. He was formally elected to the post in 1959, and was proclaimed president for life in 1975.
Habib Bourguiba resident-general, resisting the pressures to approve reforms, judged "minimal" by the nationalists, which delighted Bourguiba. In the country, despite the unity of the people, De Hauteclocque pressured the adoption of reforms. Therefore, many assassinations took place: Farhat Hached is murdered on 5 December 1952 by La Main rouge. Bourguiba, deprived of posts and newspapers called for the intensification of the resistance. In these conditions, the French government decided to replace De Hauteclocque with Pierre Voizard as resident-general, on 23 September 1953. Trying to appease the uprising, he lifted the curefew and newspaper censorship but also freed nationalist leaders. Furthermore, he