Farhat Hached

Farhat Hached (فرحات حشاد; 2 February 1914 – 5 December 1952 ) was a Tunisian labor unionist and activist who was assassinated by La Main Rouge, a French terrorist organization operated by French foreign intelligence.

He was one of the leaders of the pro-independence Tunisian national movement, along with Habib Bourguiba and Salah ben Youssef.

His assassination is attributed to La Main Rouge (The Red Hand), an armed organisation that favoured a French presence in Tunisia.

In 1930 he took a job as a courier with "la Société du transport du Sahel", a transport company based at Sousse.

In the same year he established a basic trades union at the company which he affiliated to the French Trades Union Confederation (CGT).

This was the start of his career in Tunisian trades unionism.

He took on a range of union responsibilities locally and in the region and, later, in national administration, working with.

As a result, he was dismissed from his job in 1939.

During the Second World War, with Tunisia subject to the French puppet government at Vichy, a ban on political and trades union activity made life difficult.

Hached therefore volunteered for work with the Red Cross in order to look after the injured, a task which he undertook outside his working hours.

In 1942 Tunisia became a significant theatre for the fighting between principal wartime belligerents and the requirements of the Vichy government lost their significance as local administrative responsibilities passed to the Free French colonial government.

In 1943 Hached was recruited for government service which meant relocation to Sfax where he was able to resume his trades union activities.

The same year he married a kinswoman from Kerkennah, Oum El Khir (Emna Hached).

As war in Europe continued, at the departmental congress of the CGT in March 1944, recognising the inability of the leadership in "Metropolitan France" to respond appropriately to the needs of workers in Tunisia, and disappointed by the failure of communists and socialists within it to support "the legitimate aspirations of Tunisians for national independence", he broke with the CGT.

In November 1944, with other Tunisian trades unionists, he took the initiative to launch an autonomous Tunisian trades union, starting with the "Union of Free Trades Unionists in the South" ("Union des syndicats libres du Sud") based in Sfax.

The focus was on three priorities: social justice, equality between Tunisian workers and those of French provenance, and national independence.

In 1945 he established, in addition, the "Union of Free Trades Unionists in the North" ("Union des syndicats libres du Nord"), based in Tunis.

On 20 January 1946 a joint congress took place at which the "Union of Free Trades Unionists in the South", the "Union of Free Trades Unionists in the North" and the "General Tunisian Labour Union" ("Fédération générale tunisienne du travail") which had been founded back in 1936, combined together to form the Tunisian General Labour Union ("Union Générale Tunisienne du Travail" / UGTT).

The strikes, demonstrations and street protests in support of independence intensified from 1946, in parallel with demands for improvements in living and working conditions for Tunisians.

The UGTT, directed by Hached, played a central role in triggering and choreographing episodes of unrest and in radicalising popular demands.

In 1947, still aged only 32, Hached was unanimously elected as the first General Secretary of the UGTT.

From the start, for Farhat Hached the Tunisian trades union movement was an integral part of the struggle for independence.

Autonomous and independent, it was an important and dependable pillar for the nationalist project, defined and directed by the Neo Destour "party."

In 1949 the UGTT signed up to the newly created International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU), and Hached joined the executive committee of the international body, building up international contacts within the US/western oriented labour organisation at a succession of meetings within and beyond north Africa.

Furthermore, joining the ICFTU in 1949 ensured a global voice for the UGTT.

Beyond that, the construction of a regional trades union federation for north Africa was a priority for Hached, to embrace embryonic union movements in Algeria and Morocco, and create independent trades unions in Libya that could establish appropriate union structures there.

Finally, with its social and economic programmes, along with its precepts on freedoms and liberties, the UGTT provided the nationalist movement with a coherent national agenda for the post liberation era.

At the fourth congress of the UGTT, in March 1951, Hached provided an account of its achievements after five years under his leadership.

Almost 120,000 members, from all sectors and from all regions of the country, had joined the national organisation.

A real grass roots guerilla movement was being conducted against the French colonial administration.

According to Hached, the UGTT had already won from the colonialists important civil rights and guarantees for Tunisian society as a whole.

In 1952 direct negotiations between the French and Tunisian governments broke down.

Repression followed.

Habib Bourguiba and the other leaders of the nationalist movement were arrested.

Salah ben Youssef, the Tunisian Minister of Justice, was sent by the Tunisian government to the United Nations with a request for statehood: he barely escaped arrest and deportation.

On 26 March 1952 M'hamed Chenik and other leaders of the protectorate government were arrested.

More recently, on 18 December 2009, it was confirmed to the Al Jazeera news organisation, by a man called Antoine Méléro, who claimed to be a former Main Rouge member, that the Main Rouge had been a military wing of the French Service de Documentation Extérieure et de Contre-Espionnage (External Documentation and Counter-Espionage Service) or SDECE.

Farhat Hached was born at El Abassia on the Islands of Kerkennah, the son of Mohamed Hached, a sailor, and Hana Ben Romdhane.

He spent eight years at the village primary school in Kellabine which was run by a French head teacher.

He received his Certificate of Primary Education which might have opened the way to further education, but his father's death obliged him to abandon his studies and take on paid work.