French PhD student, Victor Dupont has been detained in Tunisia on charges of breaching state security, according to Vincent Geisser, director of Dupont’s research lab.
Dupont, 27, was arrested on October 19 at his residence in a Tunis suburb, alongside three visiting friends from France. Edouard Matalon, one of the friends and a librarian from Paris, was released after questioning that same day. However, a second friend with dual French-Tunisian citizenship remains in custody on similar charges.
Geisser, who heads the French Institute of Research and Study on the Arab and Islamic Worlds at Aix-Marseille University, expressed concern, describing the detention as “an attack on academic freedom.” The Tunisian authorities and French Ministry of Foreign Affairs have not yet commented on the situation.
Dupont’s PhD research, which he began in 2022, examines the socio-economic paths of individuals involved in the 2011 revolution that led to the ousting of President Zine el Abidine Ben Ali.
