Zine El Abidine Ben Ali to guarantee the stability of his own country. Algeria was trying to diversify its foreign policy, feeling isolated by Spain and French President François Mitterrand's accord with Morocco and Libya over Chad. For two years, according to Martini, Italian and Algerian secret services worked together in order, on one hand, to avoid the growing destabilisation of Tunisia spilling over into Algeria, and on the other hand to control pro-Palestinian activities in Italy. Finally, Ben Ali was singled out as possible replacement for Bourguiba: as chief of the Tunisian secret services and as Minister of the Interior, he had opposed plans
Zine El Abidine Ben Ali a military court on April 2013 for violent repression of protests in Sfax. Ben Ali was born in 1936 to moderate-income parents as the fourth of eleven children in the family. His father, Selma Hassen, worked as a guard at the port city of Sousse. He joined the local resistance against French colonial forces and was imprisoned. His expulsion from secondary school was the reason why he never completed his secondary education. He studied at the Sousse Technical Institute but failed to earn a professional certificate and joined the newly formed Tunisian Army in 1958. Nevertheless, after being chosen as