Ahmed Ben Salah

Ahmed Ben Salah (أحمد بن صالح ) (born 13 January 1926) is a Tunisian politician and trades union leader. His power and influence peaked between 1957 and 1969 when he was able to implement his ideas for a planned economy, holding simultaneously several key ministerial posts.

Ahmed Ben Salah was born at Moknine, a mid-sized town in the coastal Sahel region, located between Monastir to the north and Mahdia to the south, in a region that during the run-up to decolonisation came to be known for nationalism. He undertook his secondary education at the prestigious Sadiki College in Tunis, completing his schooling in France during the 1940s.

His schooling finished, he entered the world of liberation politics, becoming president of the youth wing of the Destourian party (jeunesse scolaire destourienne) and in 1947, while still in France, working to ensure liaison between the Neo Destour nationalist movement in Tunisia, their exiled leader, Habib Bourguiba, in Cairo, and Moncey Bey, the former bey/king, who was living out his final years under surveillance in Pau (southwest France). Ben Salah returned to Tunisia in 1948 and embarked on a career in the trades union movement, joining the General Labour Union (Union Générale Tunisienne du Travail / UGTT) in 1948.

During the later 1940s the UGTT was a member of the Athens based World Federation of Trade Unions which by the end of the decade was losing adherents internationally. In 1951 the UGTT switched to the recently formed International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU) which, in the context of the cold war rivalries of the time, was more western in its orientation. For Ben Salah and the UGTT, membership of the ICFTU offered the prospect of a wider and more influential audience for the ambitions of the Tunisian nationalists.

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