On the night of August 10 into August 11, 2026, Tunisian President Kais Saied traveled to Gabès in the southeast of the country for an unannounced field visit. The stated goal was to see for himself the extent of the environmental crisis that has gripped the region for years. Instead of reassuring a population that has run out of patience, the visit ended up exposing just how wide the gap has grown between official promises and what people on the ground actually expect.
Gabès has long paid a heavy price for industrialization. The region is home to facilities operated by the Tunisian Chemical Group, which processes phosphate and produces fertilizers and chemical goods. These plants discharge tons of waste into the air, the soil and the sea every day, a form of environmental degradation that residents have been denouncing for years. The health consequences have become increasingly severe, with a marked rise in respiratory illness and cancer cases among the local population.
During his visit, the president used unusually strong language. He condemned what he called the ravages of pollution while also denouncing what he described as political pollution, drawing a direct link between environmental degradation and corruption. He claimed that certain circles had been plotting since 2011 to dismantle the industrial complex in order to sell it off cheaply, insisting firmly that the country’s public institutions and companies are not for sale. He also announced that only production units that had been repaired and brought up to standard would be allowed to keep operating, with the stated aim of guaranteeing residents their right to a decent living environment.
The president then went on to visit the university hospital in Gabès, where he witnessed firsthand the overcrowding in its wards and the shortage of resources. He met with the regional governor and several local members of parliament, reaffirming that the environmental issue had become a matter of national importance.
Despite the firmness of these statements, they have struggled to convince a population that has already watched numerous official visits come and go without leading to any real change. The president had received, as early as January 2026, the final report from a task force charged with proposing urgent solutions to the situation, promising at the time to take action on technical, financial and structural fronts. For many residents of Gabès, however, those commitments have remained little more than statements of intent, with nothing concrete to show for them on the ground.
According to several local accounts, the reception given to the president during this latest visit was noticeably cooler than in the past. The familiar image of a head of state surrounded by an enthusiastic crowd was nowhere to be seen. Instead, the visit unfolded against a backdrop of deep mistrust, built up over years of accumulated promises that never translated into visible results. Residents are no longer satisfied with simply being told that their region is suffering. What they want is for the polluting smokestacks to disappear, for industrial waste to be cleared away, for healthcare infrastructure to be strengthened, and above all for announced decisions to finally become reality.
This trip to Gabès was not an isolated gesture. A week earlier, the president had made a similar visit to Rades, on the southern outskirts of Tunis, another area that has struggled for years with chronic industrial pollution linked to the roughly one hundred factories discharging waste into the Oued Miliane river and along the coastline. This pattern of repeated field visits reflects a stated intention to treat environmental issues as a national priority, yet it also reveals, by contrast, just how much ground still needs to be made up in regions that have long been left to bear the consequences of industrial activity on their own.
The August 10 visit may well mark a turning point in the Gabès story, though probably not the one the presidency had hoped for. Rather than restoring public trust, it laid bare how far official rhetoric has drifted from the very concrete expectations of a population that, after years of quiet suffering, is no longer willing to settle for words alone.