User:Mccapra/Coulteas

The Couitéas affair, also called the Henchir Tabia-el-Houbira affair, was a political and financial scandal in the French Protectorate of Tunisia. It concerned an attempt to expropriate communal land belonging to Tunisian tribespeople. Their mobilization, with the support of some French politicians, including Jean Jaurès, eventually led to the government of the protectorate recognizing their rights, and the case concluded with a decision which still sets a precedent in French law.

Background
After the establishment of the protectorate in 1881, the French government tried to encourage French people to settle in the territory. However it was not easy to purchase land because although title deeds often existed, there was no cadastre. Some land titles were also based on custom and practice and lacked formal documentation. To put an end to this uncertainty, a decree of 1 July 1885 established a new process for the registration of land ownership. This involved publishing notices locally and nationally, after which the claim and any challenges to it were sent to a special court made up of seven members: a French magistrate in the chair, sitting with three other French and three Tunisian magistrates. The court’s task was to validate or deny the registration request. There was no appeal against its decisions.

Henchir Tabia-el-Houbira
The property known as the henchir of Tabia-el-Houbira was 65,000 hectare estate located in the low steppes between Sousse and Kairouan. On January 30, 1731, Hussein Bey gifted it to the marabout Hadj Fradj ben el Ghali. The gift deed specified that "all those who plow in the said henchir will pay the marabout achour (tax on crops) in wheat and barley. This donation is made by us to help the above to feed the poor and the unfortunate.”

In 1887, the heirs of the marabout, scattered across Tunisia and Tripolitania, agreed to sell their shares in the property. Some went to the Tunisian general Hassen Tordjman, and another part to a European by the name of Athanasio Grégorio. A third part of the estate was sold to a Frenchman from Annaba, Dominique Bertagna. However, the people of the Souassi and fr:Jlass tribes who occupied the rent refused to pay him any rent, arguing that they had always been there and that their ancestors had never paid anything. Bertagna’s attempts to use both the sharia and the French courts to force them to pay rent were unsuccessful. The three owners publicised their situation in a pamphlet, “History of the auction of Tabia & El Houbira”, and decided to combine their efforts by creating a joint property management company on April 27, 1894, which they invited Basilio Couitéas to join.

Couitéas was a Greek national, born in Sparta in 1860, who had arrived in Tunisia in 1879, where he launched into the grain trade with the help of a French brother-in-law, a trader based in Annaba. After the establishment of the protectorate, he became vice-consul of Greece in Sfax as well as rich tax farmer. In 1886, he became director general of the tax farm that held the tobacco monopoly. Become very rich following a family inheritance of two and a half million francs, he married in 1897 Alice de Faucamberge, daughter of the colonel commanding the garrison of Kairouan. On the birth of his son Jean in 1901, he took French nationality.

Attempts to secure recognition of title
Faced with intimidation, some of the traditional occupants of the land gave in and accepted the new leases offered priced at five dollars per méchia (or thirty cents per hectare). These rent agreements were later used to claim the validity of Couitéas’ title.

Using his connections, Couitéas made various attempts to assert the validity of his property titles with the government of the protectorate. A requisition filed on December 16 1895 with the mixed court requested the validation of title deeds and the registration of the domain by arguing that the purchase price is an annual enzel (perpetual annuity) of 2,100 francs. The request was rejected on March 2 1901 for the following reasons 10:

but the Department of Agriculture replied in 1898 that "even if the titles that Mr. Couitéas provide are authentic, they have no not the value that it gives them, and nothing can prevail, in justice as in right, in front of the immemorial possession of hundreds and thousands of natives ” 9.

“Whereas this building has a considerable extent and also appears to have significant value; that we are first struck by the low purchase price and that there is a first element of fact which is essential to the attention of the court ” ; “Whereas we note, on the other hand, that at the time of the acquisition, this building was occupied by many natives” …; "Whereas it is on the other hand certain that the applicants are not recognized by almost all of the occupants, as the claims formulated by 120 groups of natives admitted by the court here are abundantly evidenced" ; “Whereas, even more, they entered into a fight with the occupants from the moment they wanted to act as owner on this henchir” …; "Whereas we are therefore led to recognize that the original titles remain doubtful, as possession is doubtful . " The decree of January 14, 1901aims to put an end to these attempts at spoliations of the Tunisian tribes by decreeing "that these collective territories are inalienable, the members of the tribe having only a right of use over them" 11.

Despite all these failures, Couitéas refuses to leave the contested ground. He hires Moroccans who confiscate the herds caught on the property and only return them against ransom; fights broke out between the guards and the occupants and the latter replied to the gendarmes who were trying to restore calm: "We are here at home, no one will chase us out and if, when the usher came to order us to fold up our tents, they have been bent on his injunction, it is because there were only women that day to receive him ” 12.

Arbitration Commission
Article published in the newspaper Le Matin relating the decision of the Court of Cassation. Couitéas then uses his political support to circumvent the decision of the mixed tribunal which is however final. An arbitration commission is appointed on November 15, 1904and includes three senior officials but no magistrate: Paul Ducroquet (former director general of Tunisian finances ), Charles Tauchon (vice-consul of France in Tunis) and Jules Abribat (judicial interpreter in Tunis) 13. With a certain humor, Gabriel Alapetite, resident general of France in Tunisia from 1906, recounts the procedure in the Chamber of Deputies :

“They were, when they arrived, very surprised to find, on the outskirts of this area, all the appearances of private property, plantations, earthen walls, wells, all the signs that private property is revealed in Tunisia. in process of constitution. So that their task was, in a way, ordered by this aspect of the place. They saw that it was quite useless to try to attribute to Mr. Couitéas these lands of the periphery, that there was a private property there which would defend itself energetically.

But the closer we got to the center, the occupation was more superficial, more precarious. It seemed that there, those who cultivated were not assured of the next day. They had not made any plantations. So the arbitrators said to themselves: "these will undoubtedly let themselves be dispossessed more easily and then their neighbors will come together to give them asylum". This is where the mistake was. When the referees' work was finished, when the referees said: “there will be in the center a sort of circle of 38,000 hectares in one piece, for Mr. Couitéas; then outside, there will be a sort of semi-circle in which the natives whom Mr. Couitéas will not have wanted to keep as tenants will be able to find refuge ”, they thought that, thanks to the native brotherhood, the occupants of the 27,000  hectares left to the natives would open their arms to receive the others. But, gentlemen, the opposite happened 14. "

The arbitration is ratified on February 15, 190613 : this decision reassures Couitéas who then buys back the shares of his three partners from November 13 , 1904, for an amount, according to him, of 701,500 francs 3. Armed with his property titles, he demanded from the Tunisian fellahs an exorbitant rent of 11 francs per hectare instead of the 30 centimes that they were previously asked for and that they already refused to pay. At the same time, he gets the Land Bank of Algeria and Tunisia a loan of 750,000 francs in bringing to guarantee the rents that account extort 5. Tenacious, its supposed tenants do not give up; they are 308 to seek justice at the administrative court of Sousse, which dismisses them on February 13 , 190815 , which does not prevent them from appealing on points of law. the May 15, 1911, they obtain partial satisfaction since part of the judgment is quashed: the Court of Cassation accuses the court of Sousse of having ruled simultaneously on the right to property and on the right of occupation. The case is therefore referred to the civil court of Algiers 16.

Dispossession Couitéas
The departure of Resident General Stephen Pichon on December 29, 1906deprives Couitéas of its most faithful support. His successor, Gabriel Alapetite, refuses any help to the businessman who demands the eviction of his tenants, still refusing to pay as much as to leave. His requests to send the police to evacuate his domain remain a dead letter. Finally, the beylical decree of November 23, 1908 breaks the arbitration:

"Considering that the compromise of 14 and November 15, 1904, the additional act of January 20 , 1905 and the arbitration report of the February 15 , 1906 have not been subject to our sanction, that they are void and therefore cannot stand in the way of the application of the law;

Considering, moreover, that these acts, far from having the result of appeasing the disputes which they were intended to settle, only aggravated the local difficulties and that it is important to put an end to a situation likely to to compromise public tranquility;

On the proposal of the Prime Minister, after being assured of the consent of the French government:

Act I.- The operations of delimitation of collective tribal lands will be carried out in the caïdat des Jlass. The operations of delimitation of collective lands of tribes in the caïdat des Souassi prescribed since the August 15, 1906will be pursued in the territories which have remained outside operations until today 17. "

By this decree, the henchir of Tabia-el-Houbira is reinstated in the collective lands which are inalienable and its occupants recover the right of use which they had been dispossessed. All of Couitéas' property deeds are declared void but, with his political support, he does not intend to let it go. This is the start of the “Couitéas affair”.

Stance of Jean Jaures
In March 1911, the League of Human and Citizen's Rights publishes a brochure entitled L'arbitraire en Tunisie, written following the investigation of one of its members, lawyer Goudchaux-Brunschvicg. If the Couitéas case is not mentioned, the dangers raised by the laws concerning the registration of collective land are underlined. It is above all an indictment against the privileges granted to politicians who have established important areas in Tunisia when they were responsible for controlling its administration. Two months after the document was released, Jean Jaurès signs an editorial in L'Humanité, where he takes sides in the Couitéas affair and warns those who could be deceived by the businessman:

“There are newspapers, whose good faith was undoubtedly surprised, where the just protest against the iniquities and the Tunisian lootings is accompanied by a kind of apology for Mr. Couitéas. However, the operation of Mr. Couitéas was the most scandalous attempt at expropriation that has been committed in Tunisia against Tunisians […] Which is certain, which, from the point of view of political and social morality, dominates the whole debate is that thousands of natives who had been in possession for generations were suddenly threatened with expulsion by the production of a more than suspect title: it is that Mr. Couitéas tried to their pluck forty thousand hectares, acquired by him from a daring trafficker, for the cynically ridiculous royalty of thirty-two millimes, just over three cents per hectare per year. This is because the directorate of agriculture in Tunisia had pointed out the fraudulent nature of the operation […]

But Mr. Couitéas has not stopped maneuvering. He had succeeded for a moment in surprising the good faith of the League of Human Rights. She was kind enough to listen to me and she concluded that there was no need for her to take an interest in Mr. Couitéas and his protest […] It would really be too convenient for a scandal to succeed. get lost in the multiplicity of scandals raised around him. There is an oriental proverb which says: "Shall the camel hide in the dust of the caravan?" " 18 . "

Interventions in the House of Representatives
Amédée Thalamas. Despite Jaurès' warnings, several socialist deputies lend a sympathetic ear to the version defended by Louis Rouest, official representative of the Socialist Federation of Tunisia, who has taken up the cause for Couitéas. the July 12, 1911, the deputies Émile Driant , Joseph Lagrosillière , Albert Dalimier and Amédée Thalamas intervened in the Chamber of Deputies in his favor. The most noticed intervention is that of Thalamas who takes up the allegations of the affairist:

“Mr. Couitéas arrived in Tunisia fifteen or eighteen years ago with a fortune of 2 million. He acquired, under conditions of absolute regularity, a land of 60 and some thousand hectares. To have the complete and certain enjoyment of this property, he accepted a convention proposed by the Tunisian government, convention which took away 28,000 hectares to allot them to the nomadic Arabs. . The promises made to the Arabs have not been kept and the Arabs driven back from neighboring concessions are taken to the land of Mr. Couitéas who no longer has the enjoyment of the property legitimately acquired and implemented, who saw his hangars burned, his agricultural machinery destroyed, which finally had to take refuge in Tunis and, extraordinary situation, no longer owns anything. This situation is unacceptable, gentlemen, and I immediately want to do justice to a legend according to which Mr. Couitéas would have had these lands for a piece of bread. I have in my hands the receipts showing that he paid this property 743,500 francs to the three co-owners who had acquired it from the descendants of the marabout to whom a decree of the bey had granted it in 1731 19. "

The Socialist Federation of Tunisia is furious at these interventions when it had already alerted its Parisian colleagues to the reality of the facts. Even before he returned to Tunisia, Rouest was subject to an exclusion procedure from the SFIO 20.

Émile Driant in 1913. These interventions trigger debates through the press between supporters and opponents of Couitéas. Its supporters cry denial of justice by arguing that, the title deeds having been officially recognized, their cancellation by a beylical decree drafted by the general residence is an abuse of power. We denounce the omnipotence of the resident general who does not hesitate to renounce his previous commitments and who refuses to enforce the injunctions of the courts 21, 22 , 23 , 24. As for his opponents, they insist on the low purchase value of the domain, retaining only the value of the enzel, and point out the contradictions of the owner who declares enormous rental income on land that he certifies to be deserted. The affair then becomes the symbol of the spoliations suffered by the native tribes for the benefit of extremely wealthy speculators 25, 26.

The debates in the Chamber of Deputies reveal that Couitéas proposed the resale of his domain to the Tunisian government for the sum of 2,500,000 francs 27. Faced with the excitement raised by the enormity of the asking price for a property paid for a few tens of thousands of francs, the deputy Émile Driant justifies the amount during a very long speech in the Chamber of Deputies on January 19, 1912. It details the sums disbursed for the purchase of the domain and for its development 3.

The Couitéas affair is only one of the many scandals revealed by the interventions of the deputies on the spoliations of Tunisian properties for the greatest benefit of businessmen and deputies. The resident general Alapetite then intervenes in the Chamber of Deputies on January 30 and1 st February 1912to answer the multiple accusations. This is the opportunity for him to justify the refusal to register the Couitéas henchir as well as the reasons which led him to quash the arbitration judgment. He details his doubts about the validity of the title deeds acquired by the businessman while denouncing his behavior towards the occupants of the domain. He finally justifies his decision to quash the arbitration judgment: "Suffice it to say that the French government, like the Tunisian government, was upset about the completely dangerous consequences for public order of this conflict and that in 1908, better informed, he gave the Tunisian government very precise instructions so that, henceforth, the latter took up the defense of the natives on the auctioneer Tabia-el-Houbira and lent them before the courts the assistance of his authority ” . He finally concludes by announcing that, although the case concerns a protectorate, the file is transmitted to the Council of State which will study Couitéas' grievances against the French government 28, 8.

Inheritance
Couitéas stop [ edit | modify the code ] The case is over: his unfortunate protagonist then transmits his file to the Council of State to obtain compensation for the damage caused by the refusal of the government of the protectorate to evacuate his property despite the injunction of the court of Sousse, damage estimated by him to 4,600,000 francs. The French Minister of Foreign Affairs justifies his refusal by the serious disturbances which the expulsion of many natives from territories of which they consider themselves the legitimate occupants since time immemorial could have aroused.

The judgment delivered on November 30, 1923still makes jurisprudence under the name of “Couitéas judgment” 29 , by making legal the “right to the compensation of damage following the refusal of the government to lend the assistance of the police force for an expulsion”. But, at the same time, it recognizes the government, when the public interest is at stake and serious disturbances are to be feared, the right to take, by its action or its abstention, certain exceptional measures which may infringe private rights 30.

A second judgment dated December 2, 1927condemns the State to pay Couitéas compensation of 1,500,000 francs. A few years later, after the death of the beneficiary in 1928, assigns, M me Boissiere and Jean Couitéas , demanding extra compensation alleging that the judgment in 1927 was ruling only on the past while the occupation n ' had not stopped. They are definitely rejected at the startNovember 193631.

Case of collective land
The Couitéas case illustrates the difficulties encountered by the government of the protectorate in reconciling the land needs of French settlers and the rights of indigenous tribes whose revolts are feared. Basilio Couitéas is undoubtedly in good faith when he relies on these property titles bought back from Tunisians claiming to be the legatees of this area. But in this newly conquered country, where the notion of property is very different from French texts, a Tunisian occupier who has vivified his land by working it has more rights than an owner of an administrative act whose value is always subject to bail. Many other French colonists have experienced such disappointments: Gabriel Alapetite, during his speech in the Chamber of Deputies,"He limited his claims, began to cultivate the land in the midst of the natives against whom his case had been debated and, as he has some money, he makes them some advances, that he pays them enough. large salaries for the days they work at home, he ended up getting along pretty well with them and we don't hear from him anymore ” ; he specifies: "in Tunisia, when a newcomer plows the land, when he works it seriously, when he makes plantations, if it is in a region where the occupants are not very tight against each other, the neighbors quite readily recognize the title of the one who wanted to take possession of the land by invigorating it through his personal work ” 8. We are far from the practices of the many speculators who buy domains at low prices in the hope of making their purchase profitable in rents or by resale in small lots.

Some historians like Bashir Yazidi suggest that the decree of January 14, 1901is a consequence of the Couitéas case 32. By recommending the registration of collective land, this decree makes it possible to avoid new appropriations by speculators since any acquisition is frozen as soon as the decree is promulgated. However, by proclaiming that the tribes only have a "right of use" over these territories which join the domain of the State, some observers fear that the aim of the government is above all to recognize new unoccupied land which could become future colonization lots 33. Especially since the same decree provides for the immediate creation of a commission"Responsible for studying and defining the conditions of establishment, enjoyment, conservation and transmission of property in collective tribal lands". But, if the delimitations of collective lands were almost completed in 1909, the commission has not yet started its work 34.

Faced with the activities of the Tunisian administration and the speculations of the Couitéas, the Tunisian tribes are disarmed since they have no legal existence while the property rights they claim on their rangelands and grazing lands are collective rights. . This is one of the reasons why the Tunisian plaintiffs of the henchir of Tabia-el-Houbira were rejected by the court of Sousse in 1908 as Jaurès denounced in the Chamber of Deputies 9.

The fight of the Jlass and Souassi against the dispossessions initiated by Couitéas urges the government of the protectorate to be cautious, which fears the reactions of the Tunisian tribes. Collective lands are sanctuarized and, inMay 1922, the Department of Agriculture decides to consider as “tribal lands” all collective lands without exception on the sole condition that “the State has the right to acquire it” 35.

Finally, the decree of December 30, 1935grants tribes a civil personality which allows them to claim possession of the lands on which they live. Article 2 thus defines the notion of tribe as "any administrative or family grouping or any Muslim subjects, which justifies a right of collective enjoyment on one of the lands previously defined as such, whatever the origin of this right. ". In the following years, each tribe is endowed, by individual decree with a civil personality 36, sometimes with negative consequences since the recognition of their property rights encourages some to resell the land, resulting in the break-up of the tribe 37.