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Political career
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The early political career of Habib Bourguiba began in the early 1930s when he joined the main political party of the Tunisian national movement, the Destour. His political beginnings were characterized with a "battle" in newspapers such as L'Étandar Tunisien and La voix du Tunisien, while defending Tunisia's integrity and the preservation of its national identity. Shocked by the 1930 International Eucharistic Congress of Carthage, Bourguiba and his mates decided to start a press campaign to denounce the event. They soon acquired an unprecedented popularity, and stood out from the elders of Destour. They attracted the hostility of settlers, eager to put an end to their activism and press campaign. However, Bourguiba and his friends founded their own newspaper, despite the colonial attempts to stop them. L'Action Tunisienne was thus created in order to defend the "little people" in a context of economic crisis, following the Great Depression.
Bourguiba, worried about his country's state, knew that a good cause would revive the national movement, weakened by the 1926 repressions. In order to do so, he was the only one to defend M'hamed Chenik, a Tunis notable, who had been in trouble with the Residence, the French colonial administration. Bourguiba jumped at the chance to rally the bourgeoisie class to the nationalist cause. But his attempt failed and ended up dividing L'Action team. In this context, the uprising following the Tunisian naturalization issue, in early 1933, was the perfect opportunity for him. He started another successful press campaign. With his friends Tahar Sfar, Mahmoud El Materi, Bahri Guiga and his brother M'hamed, they sensitized lower classes to their cause and changed the Residence policy. The popularity he acquired during the event, led to his election as a member of the executive committee of the Destour, in May 1933. However, differences with the elders caused him to resign from the party in September 1933.