Blood streaked the floor of a Carrefour supermarket in Tunisia this weekend after its security team beat pro-Palestine protesters with sticks and chairs, an assault that left several injured and injected new fury into a boycott campaign against the French retailer accused of ties to Israel.
Videos from the Carrefour branch in La Marsa, a seaside suburb of the capital Tunis, showed demonstrators bloodied and dragged across the floor by the store's guards after they tried to storm the store on Saturday 30 August.
Some were later carried to hospitals, according to the boycott campaign, which said several of its activists suffered fractures.
"This was a peaceful, civic, anti-Zionist protest. We hold the authorities responsible for the consequences of this assault," said Jawaher Channa, a spokesperson for the Carrefour boycott campaign.
Channa confirmed that members of the store's security team had been detained for questioning after the police intervened.
TNA has reached out to Carrefour Tunisia for comment, but no one was available to answer by the time of publication.
The clash was the latest flashpoint in Tunisia's growing boycott campaign against Carrefour.
The French retailer is operated locally by the UTIC Group, a Tunisian conglomerate, but remains tied to Carrefour's global network. Activists argue those ties are enough to make it complicit in the Israeli genocide in Gaza.
"They say Carrefour Tunisia is 100 percent Tunisian. But they use the name, the supply chain, the branding, all of it. That makes them complicit", says Wael Naouar, a Tunisian pro-Palestine activist and a spokesperson of Somoud Flotilla.
The Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement has accused Carrefour Israel of providing care packages to Israeli soldiers and of operating in illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank through partnerships with companies such as Shufersal and Electra Consumer Products.
Carrefour Tunisia employs more than 5,000 people. UTIC has insisted the chain is "100 percent Tunisian" and supports the Palestinian cause, while Carrefour's parent company in France has said it maintains "strict neutrality" in political matters.
The company does not directly operate in Israel, it says, but works through its local partner, Yenot Bitan.
For protesters, these arguments don't make much sense. "You can't wash your hands of the blood while sharing profits with the parent company," Tunisia's pro-Palestine movement said in a recent statement.
Since the war in Gaza began in October 2023, Carrefour has become a symbol of normalisation in Tunisia. Weekly demonstrations have been staged since in Tunis, Sfax, Sousse, and other cities.
The campaign has already forced disruptions. In May, activists successfully shut down a Carrefour branch in La Marsa for several hours.
Boycott leaders say they are buoyed by victories abroad, pointing to Carrefour closures in Jordan and Oman following public pressure.
Their aim in Tunisia, they say, is not only closure but "de-branding"—forcing UTIC to drop the Carrefour name and rebrand under a local alternative, thus Tunisian workers won't lose their jobs.
The pro-Palestine movement in Tunisia argues that the weekend assault reflects a broader pattern of repression.
In March, a university student was arrested after tearing down a Carrefour banner during a football qualifier. His release came only after outrage over footage showing him being violently tackled by security forces.
In May, boycott activists in Tunis accused employees of the global shipping giant Maersk — also targeted by BDS campaigners — of physically attacking them during a protest.
Activists claim the campaign has already inflicted financial losses worth thousands of dollars on these companies.
Tunisia does not have diplomatic relations with Israel. But the anger surrounding Carrefour and other BDS-listed companies has dovetailed with renewed calls to criminalise normalisation with Israel.
A draft law that would have banned companies with ties to Israel stalled in 2023 after President Kais Saied blocked it, saying the legislation risked harming the country's interests.
Now, with Tunisian protesters bloodied outside supermarket doors, campaigners say they are only more determined to push forward.
"The end of Carrefour in Tunisia is near. It is only a matter of time," wrote Naouar after the Saturday attack.