Large armed F.L.N. forces threatened early Tunisian state authority. [fact]
There were some 150,000 Algerians in Tunisia, many of them heavily armed and outnumbering the infant Tunisian army itself. Thus Bourguiba saw the whole basis of his authority undermined and reacted by arresting and disarming over a thousand of the squabbling F.L.N.
Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Alge…, loc. 700