Moufida Bourguiba (Arabic: مفيدة بورقيبة; née Mathilde Lorrain 24 January 1890 – 15 November 1976) was the first wife of Habib Bourguiba, the first President of Tunisia, and thus the inaugural First Lady of Tunisia from 1957 to 1961.[1]
Mathilde Lorrain was born in France in 1890 in Saint-Maur-des-Fossés, Val-de-Marne. She married a French officer, Colonel le Fras who was killed at the very end of the First World War on 11 November 1918. She met Habib Bourguiba in 1925 whilst he was studying law at the University of Paris. Their only son, also Habib, was born in April 1927 and they married in August 1927.[citation needed]
After independence she converted to Islam and took the name "Moufida" on 25 October 1958.[citation needed] Her husband awarded her with a number of honours but she is claimed to have said that she only did things for him and his country.
The couple divorced in 1961. She died in Monastir in 1976. Her husband remarried to Wassila Ben Ammar.