Gathered around a chipped Formica table, under the light of a bare bulb in a cafe in Ettadhamen, one of Tunis’s poorest neighbourhoods, four young men drag on Gauloise cigarettes as they tot up the cost of everyday living to the last dinar.
"On a Tunisian salary, on 400 dinars a month, you can afford to take the train to work, have a coffee, a cigarette, and maybe eat lunch," said Skander, 25, a marketing student.
“Maybe,” interjected his friend Hassen, also 25. They all laugh, knowingly. Three meals a day is never a guarantee, even for those in full-time jobs.
People think we're protesting just to make trouble, but everyone out on the street at night has his reasons to be there
The grinding poverty and lack of economic mobility that plague their neighbourhood have driven Skander, Hassen and hundreds of their peers to the streets night after night in recent weeks in a wave of protests reminiscent of those that ousted president Zine El Abedin Ben Ali 10 years ago.
While organised activists hold rallies and protests on the main avenues downtown during daylight hours, dozens of young men defy Covid-19 curfew orders at night to battle with police in their own neighbourhoods.
They hurl rocks and Molotov cocktails, when they can afford the fuel. The police respond with tear gas and rubber bullets.
More than 1,200 young people have been arrested, many of them minors, and one has died since the latest confrontations began on January 15.
“We can’t breathe, we have nothing,” said Moutia, 21, who spent much of last week warring with the police on the streets of Ettadhamen every evening when the sun had set.
"People think we're protesting just to make trouble, but everyone out on the street at night has his reasons to be there. For some of us, it is our own poverty. For others, it is injustice from the police or the authorities, but all of us are there for a reason, and we're angry," he told The National.
Politicians on both ends of Tunisia’s increasingly polarised political spectrum twist the protests in Ettadhamen, which are unstructured and decentralised, to conform to their own agendas.
The left claims the protesters are demanding the removal of the government and the moderate Islamist Ennahda party. They, in turn, focus on the looting and vandalism by some of the young protesters in their appeal for law and order.
Neither side acknowledges the core of these outbursts – decades of failed economic, educational and social policies that left working-class neighbourhoods like Ettadhamen isolated, marginalised and desperate.
Unwanted guests in their own city
The neighbourhood of Ettadhamen sprang up on the outskirts of Tunis in the mid-1970s, after a series of failed state agricultural experiments forced small-time farmers to leave the country’s interior en masse and settle near the capital, chasing the promise of industrial jobs.
“That rapid urbanisation happened without the financial or political capacity to manage or even properly plan the expansion,” said political economist Emma Murphy, who researches Tunisia.
Hundreds of shoddy block houses went up, with little thought about schools, hospitals or transport.
The promised manufacturing jobs never materialised, yet the displaced and dispossessed workers had no place else to go. Many turned to subsistence work, or menial labour, to scrape a living.
Everything I earn goes to my children's education
Najia, a cleaner from Ettadhamen
Now, decades on, their children and grandchildren drift in the same desperate straits. Like their forbears, they are still seen as outsiders in the capital.
Residents describe an invisible but powerful barrier of distrust that exists between Ettadhamen and the rest of the city.
“If you leave the neighbourhood and a policeman stops you at a checkpoint and sees you’re from Ettadhamen,” said Neji, 34, “they’ll interrogate you, and ask you, ‘What are you doing here?’”
Young people doctor job applications, using the address of a friend from university or a cousin living in a better neighbourhood to avoid revealing that they are from Ettadhamen.
“If an employer finds out they’re from Ettadhamen, they’ll know they will probably turn up late because the transport is so bad, or have to leave early to avoid getting mugged on the way home,” Ms Murphy said.
This marginalisation extends to the highest echelons of government.
Last week, Defence Minister Brahim Bertegi claimed that those protesting in Ettadhamen were not “indigenous to the cities of the coast, but guests” in the capital.
A narrow window of escape
Many in Ettadhamen see education as the only means of escape from the cycle of poverty in their neighbourhood.
But the public education system groans under the weight of too many pupils, and teachers save their energies for higher-paying private students who they tutor after hours.
“Everything I earn goes to my children’s education,” said Najia, a cleaner from Ettadhamen whose daughter, 14, and son, 12, attended school only part-time this academic year because of Covid-19.
When the pandemic hit, Najia’s clients in the upmarket neighbourhoods of Tunis told her to stay away.
For two months, the family lived on the meagre salary her husband earns as a 24-hour security guard.
Now back to work, Najia pays for after-school care for her son, but her daughter is left alone at home for long stretches.
She hopes they will both continue their studies, but worries that she will not have enough money to help them get into the right schools.
With few connections and little capital to bribe their way into better colleges, students in Ettadhamen who do go on to university bear the brunt of decades of broken education policy that has hollowed out higher education.
In a ploy to decrease the unemployment rate in the 1990s, Tunisia’s former president, Ben Ali, greatly expanded access to education. But, the quality of the instruction at new universities was never regulated and rapidly deteriorated.
Ms Murphy described meeting graduates of computer science programmes “who had never touched a computer before”.
After graduation, a narrow window of escape opens for students in Ettadhamen.
A lucky few land jobs in their chosen careers, some even overseas.
But 29 per cent of Tunisians with advanced degrees are jobless, according to the latest figures from the World Bank. The rate is estimated to be nearly double that in working-class neighbourhoods.
Many graduates, such as agricultural engineer Oussema Ayari, can find only part-time employment.
Mr Ayari wanted to open his own agricultural co-operative, but a web of bureaucracy and corruption stopped him getting the credit he needed.
“There’s no way to start a business or realise your ambitions,” he said. “The youth see that the social elevator is blocked, and they start thinking of leaving.”
Neji, a computational engineer, knew he had only a few months after he graduated to find a job before his window of opportunity closed.
“If you leave your studies and work in a shop for four or five years, you’re never going to be considered for a real job. Even if you have the same education,” he said. He managed to find employment at an international company and emigrated to Paris in 2018. “But I meet so many young guys who came to Europe the other way – on boats.”
Last year, a record 13,000 Tunisians boarded small fishing vessels to cross the treacherous waters of the Mediterranean Sea in hopes of landing in Europe. The number is five times higher than in 2019.
Hassen, one of the young men at the protests in Ettadhamen, said he would not hesitate to join them.
“I don’t want to stay here because, in this country, only the richest survive,” he said.
‘They Planned This for Us’
For those who can find neither a job nor want to board a boat for Europe, few options remain in Ettadhamen.
Tunisia's mounting trade deficit and pressure from the International Monetary Fund to carry out spending cuts triggered a currency crisis in 2019, with the dinar depreciating 26 per cent against the dollar.
The only thing that isn't more expensive these days is the drugs
That hit residents of Etthadamen, already accustomed to budgeting every dinar of their paycheques to meet daily necessities, particularly hard as prices rose.
Some young men bring in money by pilfering phones from people on public transport and hawking them on the black market. Many others sink into despair and drug use.
“The only thing that isn’t more expensive these days is the drugs,” said Moutia, one of the young protesters.
Run-ins with the police are common, and often brutal, as the response to protests in recent weeks have underscored.
And when the courts began prosecuting protesters, some as young as 16, handing down two-year sentences, the young men who spoke to The National were incensed but hardly surprised.
“What’s waiting for you after two years in prison when you’re 16? What can your life be after that?” said Moutia. “It feels like a premeditated programme, like they planned this for us.”
The specs: 2017 Dodge Viper SRT
Price, base / as tested Dh460,000
Engine 8.4L V10
Transmission Six-speed manual
Power 645hp @ 6,200rpm
Torque 813Nm @ 5,000rpm
Fuel economy, combined 16.8L / 100km
The Perfect Couple
Starring: Nicole Kidman, Liev Schreiber, Jack Reynor
Creator: Jenna Lamia
Rating: 3/5
LOS ANGELES GALAXY 2 MANCHESTER UNITED 5
Galaxy: Dos Santos (79', 88')
United: Rashford (2', 20'), Fellaini (26'), Mkhitaryan (67'), Martial (72')
START-UPS%20IN%20BATCH%204%20OF%20SANABIL%20500'S%20ACCELERATOR%20PROGRAMME
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Nepotism is the name of the game
Salman Khan’s father, Salim Khan, is one of Bollywood’s most legendary screenwriters. Through his partnership with co-writer Javed Akhtar, Salim is credited with having paved the path for the Indian film industry’s blockbuster format in the 1970s. Something his son now rules the roost of. More importantly, the Salim-Javed duo also created the persona of the “angry young man” for Bollywood megastar Amitabh Bachchan in the 1970s, reflecting the angst of the average Indian. In choosing to be the ordinary man’s “hero” as opposed to a thespian in new Bollywood, Salman Khan remains tightly linked to his father’s oeuvre. Thanks dad.
Essentials
The flights: You can fly from the UAE to Iceland with one stop in Europe with a variety of airlines. Return flights with Emirates from Dubai to Stockholm, then Icelandair to Reykjavik, cost from Dh4,153 return. The whole trip takes 11 hours. British Airways flies from Abu Dhabi and Dubai to Reykjavik, via London, with return flights taking 12 hours and costing from Dh2,490 return, including taxes.
The activities: A half-day Silfra snorkelling trip costs 14,990 Icelandic kronur (Dh544) with Dive.is. Inside the Volcano also takes half a day and costs 42,000 kronur (Dh1,524). The Jokulsarlon small-boat cruise lasts about an hour and costs 9,800 kronur (Dh356). Into the Glacier costs 19,500 kronur (Dh708). It lasts three to four hours.
The tours: It’s often better to book a tailor-made trip through a specialist operator. UK-based Discover the World offers seven nights, self-driving, across the island from £892 (Dh4,505) per person. This includes three nights’ accommodation at Hotel Husafell near Into the Glacier, two nights at Hotel Ranga and two nights at the Icelandair Hotel Klaustur. It includes car rental, plus an iPad with itinerary and tourist information pre-loaded onto it, while activities can be booked as optional extras. More information inspiredbyiceland.com
The Bio
Favourite Emirati dish: I have so many because it has a lot of herbs and vegetables. Harees (oats with chicken) is one of them
Favourite place to go to: Dubai Mall because it has lots of sports shops.
Her motivation: My performance because I know that whatever I do, if I put the effort in, I’ll get results
During her free time: I like to drink coffee - a latte no sugar and no flavours. I do not like cold drinks
Pet peeve: That with every meal they give you a fries and Pepsi. That is so unhealthy
Advice to anyone who wants to be an ironman: Go for the goal. If you are consistent, you will get there. With the first one, it might not be what they want but they should start and just do it
Most wanted allegations
- Benjamin Macann, 32: involvement in cocaine smuggling gang.
- Jack Mayle, 30: sold drugs from a phone line called the Flavour Quest.
- Callum Halpin, 27: over the 2018 murder of a rival drug dealer.
- Asim Naveed, 29: accused of being the leader of a gang that imported cocaine.
- Calvin Parris, 32: accused of buying cocaine from Naveed and selling it on.
- John James Jones, 31: allegedly stabbed two people causing serious injuries.
- Callum Michael Allan, 23: alleged drug dealing and assaulting an emergency worker.
- Dean Garforth, 29: part of a crime gang that sold drugs and guns.
- Joshua Dillon Hendry, 30: accused of trafficking heroin and crack cocain.
- Mark Francis Roberts, 28: grievous bodily harm after a bungled attempt to steal a £60,000 watch.
- James ‘Jamie’ Stevenson, 56: for arson and over the seizure of a tonne of cocaine.
- Nana Oppong, 41: shot a man eight times in a suspected gangland reprisal attack.
What is tokenisation?
Tokenisation refers to the issuance of a blockchain token, which represents a virtually tradable real, tangible asset. A tokenised asset is easily transferable, offers good liquidity, returns and is easily traded on the secondary markets.
Company%20Profile
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Living in...
This article is part of a guide on where to live in the UAE. Our reporters will profile some of the country’s most desirable districts, provide an estimate of rental prices and introduce you to some of the residents who call each area home.
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Ten tax points to be aware of in 2026
1. Domestic VAT refund amendments: request your refund within five years
If a business does not apply for the refund on time, they lose their credit.
2. E-invoicing in the UAE
Businesses should continue preparing for the implementation of e-invoicing in the UAE, with 2026 a preparation and transition period ahead of phased mandatory adoption.
3. More tax audits
Tax authorities are increasingly using data already available across multiple filings to identify audit risks.
4. More beneficial VAT and excise tax penalty regime
Tax disputes are expected to become more frequent and more structured, with clearer administrative objection and appeal processes. The UAE has adopted a new penalty regime for VAT and excise disputes, which now mirrors the penalty regime for corporate tax.
5. Greater emphasis on statutory audit
There is a greater need for the accuracy of financial statements. The International Financial Reporting Standards standards need to be strictly adhered to and, as a result, the quality of the audits will need to increase.
6. Further transfer pricing enforcement
Transfer pricing enforcement, which refers to the practice of establishing prices for internal transactions between related entities, is expected to broaden in scope. The UAE will shortly open the possibility to negotiate advance pricing agreements, or essentially rulings for transfer pricing purposes.
7. Limited time periods for audits
Recent amendments also introduce a default five-year limitation period for tax audits and assessments, subject to specific statutory exceptions. While the standard audit and assessment period is five years, this may be extended to up to 15 years in cases involving fraud or tax evasion.
8. Pillar 2 implementation
Many multinational groups will begin to feel the practical effect of the Domestic Minimum Top-Up Tax (DMTT), the UAE's implementation of the OECD’s global minimum tax under Pillar 2. While the rules apply for financial years starting on or after January 1, 2025, it is 2026 that marks the transition to an operational phase.
9. Reduced compliance obligations for imported goods and services
Businesses that apply the reverse-charge mechanism for VAT purposes in the UAE may benefit from reduced compliance obligations.
10. Substance and CbC reporting focus
Tax authorities are expected to continue strengthening the enforcement of economic substance and Country-by-Country (CbC) reporting frameworks. In the UAE, these regimes are increasingly being used as risk-assessment tools, providing tax authorities with a comprehensive view of multinational groups’ global footprints and enabling them to assess whether profits are aligned with real economic activity.
Contributed by Thomas Vanhee and Hend Rashwan, Aurifer
Our legal consultant
Name: Dr Hassan Mohsen Elhais
Position: legal consultant with Al Rowaad Advocates and Legal Consultants.
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Dhadak 2
Director: Shazia Iqbal
Starring: Siddhant Chaturvedi, Triptii Dimri
Rating: 1/5
Red flags
- Promises of high, fixed or 'guaranteed' returns.
- Unregulated structured products or complex investments often used to bypass traditional safeguards.
- Lack of clear information, vague language, no access to audited financials.
- Overseas companies targeting investors in other jurisdictions - this can make legal recovery difficult.
- Hard-selling tactics - creating urgency, offering 'exclusive' deals.
Courtesy: Carol Glynn, founder of Conscious Finance Coaching
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
More from Neighbourhood Watch:
What is the Supreme Petroleum Council?
The Abu Dhabi Supreme Petroleum Council was established in 1988 and is the highest governing body in Abu Dhabi’s oil and gas industry. The council formulates, oversees and executes the emirate’s petroleum-related policies. It also approves the allocation of capital spending across state-owned Adnoc’s upstream, downstream and midstream operations and functions as the company’s board of directors. The SPC’s mandate is also required for auctioning oil and gas concessions in Abu Dhabi and for awarding blocks to international oil companies. The council is chaired by Sheikh Khalifa, the President and Ruler of Abu Dhabi while Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed, Abu Dhabi’s Crown Prince and Deputy Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces, is the vice chairman.
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