Taïeb Baccouche (; born 1 November 1944) is a Tunisian politician who has been Secretary-General of the

Arab Maghreb Union The Arab Maghreb Union ( '; AMU/UMA) is a political union and economic union trade agreement aiming for economic and future political unity among Arab countries that are located primarily in the Maghreb in North Africa. Its members are the natio ...

since 2016. Previously he served in the government of Tunisia as

Minister of Education An education minister (sometimes minister of education) is a position in the governments of some countries responsible for dealing with educational matters. Where known, the government department, ministry, or agency that develops policy and deli ...

in 2011, in the wake of the Tunisian Revolution, and

Minister of Foreign Affairs In many countries, the ministry of foreign affairs (abbreviated as MFA or MOFA) is the highest government department exclusively or primarily responsible for the state's foreign policy and foreign relations, relations, diplomacy, bilateralism, ...

from 2015 to 2016.

Life and career

Born at Jemmal in 1944, Baccouche travelled to France in 1965 to study at the Sorbonne where he obtained a degree in

Linguistics Linguistics is the scientific study of language. The areas of linguistic analysis are syntax (rules governing the structure of sentences), semantics (meaning), Morphology (linguistics), morphology (structure of words), phonetics (speech sounds ...

in 1966 and an aggregation in Arabic in 1968. After that, he returned to Tunis to teach at the University of Tunis. Baccouche was awarded a State Doctorate in Linguistics in 1980 from the University of Paris Sorbonne. He was General Secretary of the

Tunisian General Labour Union The Tunisian General Labour Union (, ''UGTT''. ) is a national trade union center in Tunisia. It has a membership of more than one million and was founded on January 20, 1946. The UGTT is affiliated with the International Trade Union Confederatio ...

(UGTT) from 1981 to 1984. He was President of the Tunisian Association of Linguistics from 1995 to 2002 and has been General Secretary of the Mediterranean Linguistics Meetings –RLM and President of the Human Rights Arab Institute since 1998. After the Tunisian Revolution, he served in the government as Minister of Education from January 2011 to December 2011. Later, he was appointed as Minister of Foreign Affairs in January 2015. After less than a year in that post, Khemaies Jhinaoui was appointed to succeed him in January 2016."Taieb Baccouche nominated as Secretary General of Arab Maghreb Union"
Tunisia-tn.com, 23 February 2016. Baccouche was then appointed as Secretary-General of the Arab Maghreb Union on 5 May 2016.

Honours

Commandeur Commander (commonly abbreviated as Cmdr.) is a common naval officer rank as well as a job title in many armies. Commander is also used as a rank or title in other formal organizations, including several police forces. In several countries, t ...

of the Order of the Republic of

Tunisia Tunisia, officially the Republic of Tunisia, is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It is bordered by Algeria to the west and southwest, Libya to the southeast, and the Mediterranean Sea to the north and east. Tunisia also shares m ...

(23 November 2011)

References

1944 births Tunisian trade unionists Living people People from Kairouan Tunisian Muslims People of the Tunisian revolution Tunisian educators University of Paris alumni Academic staff of Tunis University Nidaa Tounes politicians Foreign ministers of Tunisia Education ministers of Tunisia Linguists from Tunisia Tunisian expatriates in France Recipients of the Order of the Republic (Tunisia) {{Tunisia-politician-stub