The way ahead will not be a smooth one, as it happens after any dictatorial and violent regime.
The French foreign office, in its turn, offered assistance to the old dictatorial regime in order to calm the unrest, while the French agriculture minister was happy to emphasize all the good things that despot President Zine El Abadine Ben Ali had done for his country.
Academic Saskia van Genugten condemns Europe’s politicians for *“sweeping aside all the dubious aspects of Ben Ali’s regime”* and expresses the hope that *“European leaders will finally see that supporting a dictatorship can only be counterproductive”*.
While Tunisian pilot Mohamed Ben Kilani is now enjoying hero status after he refused to allow five members of the ousted president’s family on board his flight to Lyon. *“I decided not to collaborate with these escaping criminals,”* he says in an interview. *“If I had let them on board as passengers, I would have been a traitor for the rest of my life.”*
The transition days after the “Jazmine Revolution” are about to begin…
