Imen Neffati is a history PhD student at the University of Sheffield working on French satirical press and ideas of free speech.
The independent law professor Kais Saied’s victory in the Tunisian presidential election saw voters punish the parties who have ruled the country since the Arab Spring. Yet if “anti-corruption” has become a rallying point for Tunisians, the deeper economic woes that drove the 2011 uprising remain unresolved.
The reaction to the Paris terror attacks in 2015 identified Charlie Hebdo with freedom of speech. Yet the magazine’s anti-working-class smears are today used to silence the gilets jaunes.