Coverage spread: 2 sources — 2 international
Lean ratings via AllSides / Media Bias-Fact-Check. How this works.
Where they agree
- A severe heatwave has pushed electricity demand beyond capacity, prompting state utility STEG to impose rolling blackouts.
- Wildfires are simultaneously affecting the country, with outside firefighting help arriving from Italy and Algeria.
- The crisis is unfolding five years after President Kais Saied’s 2021 seizure of expanded powers, against a backdrop of economic decline.
Where they differ
- France24’s video treats the blackouts primarily as an energy-infrastructure story tied to the heatwave, without political framing.
- Al Jazeera situates the blackouts within a wider narrative of political repression, media crackdowns and public anger at Saied’s rule.
- Only Al Jazeera reports the Saturday protests and counter-protests in Tunis, and quotes Human Rights Watch’s Salsabil Chellali on human rights conditions.
- Al Jazeera includes specific wildfire damage figures (4,400 hectares) and an anonymous analyst’s criticism of the government’s lack of planning, details absent from France24’s coverage.
What’s happening on the ground
Tunisia is being squeezed by a severe heatwave that has forced the state-owned electricity and gas company, STEG, to impose rolling blackouts as demand for fans and air conditioning outstrips supply. The power cuts, meant to manage the strain on the grid, are reportedly damaging crops and hurting industries that depend on a steady power supply.
At the same time, wildfires have been tearing through the country, destroying an estimated 4,400 hectares of land — roughly two-thirds the size of Paris — despite firefighting assistance from Italy and Algeria. A Tunisia-based analyst, speaking anonymously out of fear of repression, told Al Jazeera the country has no real plan for either the seasonal spike in electricity demand or the wildfires, describing the government’s handling of the crisis as being like “a ship being captained by a man with no knowledge of sailing.”
Protests and a widening political rift
The infrastructure crisis is unfolding against a backdrop of deepening political division five years after President Kais Saied’s 2021 power grab, which he carried out using the deteriorating economy as a justification. On Saturday, thousands marched in the capital to protest what they see as Saied’s increasingly autocratic rule and worsening living conditions. They were met by counter-demonstrators loyal to Saied, who waved flags and called for “traitors” to be jailed.
Salsabil Chellali, Tunisia director at Human Rights Watch, said Saied’s five years in power have amounted to a human rights crisis, marked by the dismantling of the rule of law and a systematic targeting of the opposition, civil society and the media. She said the message to Tunisians now is that no critic is safe under his rule. Al Jazeera notes that Tunisian journalists, wary of a broad crackdown on the media, have shaped their coverage of the protests cautiously, and that the political debate that once filled the airwaves after the 2011 revolution has largely been replaced by sports and entertainment programming.
Why the anger is spreading beyond politics
Al Jazeera frames the current unrest as a product of layered grievances: political repression, economic decline and the collapse of public services all landing at once. The economy, which helped fuel the 2011 revolution and later gave Saied his pretext for seizing power, has continued to deteriorate, and the outlet argues that the current heatwave and blackouts are acting as a spark for public frustration that has been building for years.
Still, the report notes that Saied retains a base of support among Tunisians who recall the parliamentary gridlock and factional infighting of the pre-coup era, suggesting the public mood remains split rather than uniformly hostile to his rule.
How the coverage differs
France24’s video segment focuses narrowly on the immediate crisis, describing Tunisia as “energy-hungry” and framing the blackouts as a direct response to the heatwave’s strain on the power grid, without addressing the political backdrop. Al Jazeera takes a broader view, weaving the energy crisis and wildfires into a wider narrative about eroding civil liberties, media repression and the anniversary of Saied’s 2021 self-coup. Where France24 treats the blackouts as an infrastructure story, Al Jazeera treats them as one symptom of a larger governance failure, using on-the-ground quotes from an anonymous analyst and a human rights advocate to make that case.
The bigger picture
Tunisia was the birthplace of the 2011 Arab Spring uprisings and was long held up as the region’s lone democratic success story. That reputation has eroded steadily since Saied suspended parliament and began ruling by decree in 2021. The current combination of extreme heat, wildfires and power shortages is testing a government that critics say has consolidated political control while neglecting basic planning for foreseeable seasonal crises. With journalists constrained and civil society under pressure, independent verification of the scale of public discontent — and of the government’s own response — remains difficult from outside the country.
Sources
Featured photo: Yves Tennevin via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)