Habib Bourguiba personality and that it had to be preserved until the country got emancipated. This statement surprised liberals like the French unionist Joachim Durel. The controversy that followed opposed him to Bourguiba for nearly a month, Bourguiba writing in "L'Étendard tunisien" while Durel responded in "Tunis socialiste". The year 1930 was the peak of French colonization in North Africa, which led France to celebrate the centenary of the French conquest of Algeria, by organizing a eucharistic congress in Tunisia. On this occasion, millions of Europeans invaded the capital city and went to the Saint-Lucien de Carthage cathedral, disguised as crusaders, which
Habib Bourguiba Interior, Ahmed Mestiri. During the Congress of Monastir that started on 19 June, Bourguiba, returning after six months of treatment abroad, designated three successive "heirs": "It is with confidence that I foresee the day when my journey in this world comes to an end, Nouira shall succeed me as later will do Mestiri then Masmoudi". But the congress adopted a turning that seemed not to please the President. After Mestiri's attempt to seize control of the party, Bourguiba suspended him, along with his allies and declared finished the works of the Central Committee: "It is more than clear that, while