Habib Bourguiba that opposed Bourguibists, who favored a stepwise policy and modernism and youssefists, the conservative Arab nationalist supporters of Ben Youssef. The showdown ended with the Sfax Congress of 1955 in favor of Bourguiba. He then negotiated independence from France which he obtained on 20 March 1956. Following the country's independence, Bourguiba was appointed prime minister by king Muhammad VIII al-Amin and acted as "De facto" ruler before proclaiming the Republic, on 25 July 1957. Subsequently, he was designated Interim President of Tunisia until the enactment of a constitution and the election of a permanent president. His main priorities upon taking
Early life of Habib Bourguiba see him once again, and, in the upcoming months, invited him to move in with her. Since then, he gave his room in the campus away and settled with Mathilde. With this new way of life, Bourguiba distanced from the other students, even with the Zouitens, supposed to be his future family-in-law and sightseeing in Paris. It was Habib, the brother of Chadlia Zouiten, who discovered his affair with Mathilde and wrote him a letter: "I do not hide that I find this attitude a bit coward [...] you, who was supposed to marry my sister". But even in the