Early life of Habib Bourguiba Abdelaziz Thâalbi from exile and the protests of April 5, 1922, which increased his nationalist aspirations. In 1924, he got his baccalaureate, as valedictorian and flew to Paris in order to pursue his Higher education. In the French capital city, he enrolled in the Law school of Sorbonne and spent his time discovering the colonial civilization to "arm himself intellectually" against it. There, he met Mathilde Lefras, a fourteen-year older widow, with whom he had a relationship. In 1927, when he obtained a law licence, Mathilde gave birth to their son, Habib Jean Bourguiba. When he returned to Tunisia, Bourguiba
Early life of Habib Bourguiba were not a young student, I was satisfied with this date of birth and kept it". One of his ministers, Mahmoud El Materi, confirmed this hypothesis in his memoirs. Being the son of Ali Bourguiba and Fattouma Khefacha, who was 40 when he was born, Bourguiba stated that his mother was ashamed to conceive a child at that late age, her last pregnancy being seven years old at the time. Meanwhile, his father wondered whether he could raise his son at this old age. Habib Bourguiba later described his birth in these words: "When she conceived me, it was for