Je suis le fils aîné du fils aîné du fils aîné…

Mehdi Ben Attia is a 49-year-old screenwriter and director who was born in Tunis in 1968 and is the eldest child of a middle-class Tunisian family. His own father was one of the rare Muslim Tunisians of the era to complete his high school baccalauréat in a newly independent Tunisia in 1958. Ben Attia's father moved to Paris after 1958 where he attended medical school and lived until 1970. His parents met in Tunisia in 1966 and got married the following year. When Ben Attia's mother became pregnant with him in Paris, his parents decided they wanted their son to be born in Tunis, and then, after his birth, they returned to live in Paris until 1970. Ben Attia tells me both of his parents were part of “la tradition assez libérale de Tunisie des années 60” [rather liberal tradition of Tunisia of the 1960s]. His father built a career in Tunis as an oncologist and his mother worked as a homemaker who took care of her son and two younger daughters who eventually came along. The family spoke French at home and participated in the cultural (i.e., non religious) aspects of Tunisian culture. Ben Attia's parents always supported his education, first at French-speaking school in Tunis, and eventually when he decided to attend university in Paris. He would follow in his father's footsteps by moving to Paris in 1986 where he studied economics at Université Paris I-Tolbiac (1986–89). He would later change fields of study and finished his university degree in political science at Institut d’études politiques or “Science Po” (1989–91).