The security forces at first allowed the demonstrations to build for a few hours. Then military forces fired shots into the air, followed by occasional blasts from a water cannon to disperse the crowd. After the former government’s swift and ruthless attacks on any unauthorized public gathering, however, the crowd seemed to revel in the relatively gentle response. “A shower,” shrugged one man, in French, his suit and overcoat soaking wet. A man in red shoes danced in the puddles in front of the chanting crowd.

The outlawed Communist and Islamist parties were excluded from the talks.

Tunisia's president has left power for good, the president of the country's Constitutional Court said Saturday, declaring that the leader of the lower house of parliament will assume power until elections are held in two months.

Constitutional Council President Fethi Abdennadher said Saturday that Ben Ali has permanently vacated his position and lawmaker Fouad Mebazaa has up to 60 days to organize new elections.

Overnight, public television station TV7 broadcast phone calls from residents of working-class neighborhoods on the capital's outskirts, recounting attacks against their homes by knife-wielding assailants.Ghannouchi — who held power for less than 24 hours — told TV stations overnight that he had ordered the army and other security forces to intervene immediately in those neighborhoods.

If one looks closely at Tunisian society on the eve of independence in 1956, it is rather striking – there was most definitely what is referred to today as a highly developed `civil society’, with participation of most sectors of society in the political movement that led to independence. But that civil society was first seriously weakened by the country’s first president, Habib Bourguiba who saw it as a threat to his personal power. Then it was smothered by Ben Ali — or more accurately, Ben Ali tried to snuff it out. And yet despite everything, under the surface it has continued – until it erupted once again full force after the death of Mohammed Bouazzizi.