Tunisia imposed a nationwide overnight curfew Friday in response to growing unrest over unemployment as protests across the country descended into vandalism in several cities.
Tunisia's prime minister, Habib Essid, was cutting short a visit to France to deal with the protests, which were triggered Sunday when a young man who lost out on a government job climbed a transmission tower in protest and was electrocuted.
Tunisia has been under a state of emergency since a suicide bombing in November killed 12 members of the presidential guard in the heart of Tunis - an attack that capped an unusually violent year for Tunisia.
The suicide five years ago of another unemployed youth set off a popular uprising that overthrew Tunisia's longtime ruler Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, and eventually gave rise to the "Arab Spring" uprisings across North Africa.