10 Dinars 2006 Coup d'état 19th Anniversary, French legend

Tunisia's "Coup d'état" commemoratives mark the November 7, 1987 removal of Habib Bourguiba by Prime Minister Zine El Abidine Ben Ali — achieved without bloodshed through a physician's declaration that Bourguiba was mentally unfit to govern. Ben Ali's government institutionalized the date as a national holiday and issued a long-running series of commemorative gold pieces tied to its anniversaries. The French-legend variant exists alongside an Arabic-legend counterpart, reflecting Tunisia's bilingual official culture rather than any separate issuing authority.

By the 2006 issue, Ben Ali himself would be deposed in 2011 — making the entire anniversary series an awkward relic of a regime that ended the same way it began.