Tunisian President Kais Saied will be meeting with his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron at the Elysee palace on Monday, and the conflict in neighboring Libya will be a top agenda item. Saied’s first visit to France, Tunisian’s former colonizer and a leading economic partner, will be watched closely back home, where the war in neighboring Libya pitting the internationally recognized government of Fayez al-Sarraj against the beleaguered eastern warlord Khalifa Hifter has further polarized the political landscape and imperiled the country’s fragile governing coalition.
Libya is the latest staging ground for the bitter rivalry between Turkey and the UAE-led blocs that is causing toxic spillover in Tunisia, hailed as the sole democracy to have emerged from the Arab Spring uprisings.
