Clashes in several Tunisian towns

TUNIS —  Tunisian police firing tear gas clashed with hundreds of protesters in at least four separate towns on Tuesday after demonstrations broke out to demand employment just days after a young jobless man committed suicide. The protests erupted in Kasserine, where the young man killed himself, apparently over the lack of job opportunities, residents said, and later spread to three other towns or cities in the country's impoverished central, southern region. Tunisia's "Arab Spring" uprising in 2011 was sparked when a struggling young market vendor committed suicide, unleashing a tide of anger among the young, unemployed that eventually forced longtime autocrat leader Zine El-Abidine Ben Ali to step down and flee the country. "Security forces chased the protesters in the streets of the city and fired tear gas," Hatem Salhi, a witness in Kasserine, told Reuters by telephone. Hundreds of unemployed protesters had gathered in front of the headquarters of the Kasserine governorate, where some threatened to commit suicide, prompting tear gas salvos by security forces to scatter them, witnesses said. The Interior Ministry later announced a night-time curfew in Kasserine as a preventative measure. But clashes continued into the night there and spread to the other cities of Tahla, Fernana, Meknasi. Protesters chanted: "Work, freedom and dignity," according to one resident. In Meknasi, groups of young men took to the streets and set alight tires in solidarity with protests in Kasserine, said Mahdi Horchani, a local resident. The unrest in Tunisia sparked the revolutions that transformed the Arab world. But while countries such as Libya and Syria have been torn apart by violence and civil war, Tunisia avoided the worst of the chaos and remains relatively stable. On Tuesday, the main UGTT union and largest industry association struck a deal to increase wages for about 1.5 million private-sector employees, a decision that could avert strikes and protests. The UGTT had threatened a general strike if Tunisia's Chamber of Commerce and Industry refused to raise wages. Government officials and business leaders say social tensions, strikes and protests have led dozens of local and foreign firms to pull out of Tunisia since 2011. — Reuters