Naïma Ben Ali

Naïma Ben Ali (; 1944 or 1945 – 9 April 2025); was the First Lady of Tunisia as the first wife of Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, serving from 1987 until her divorce from Ben Ali in 1988.

Biography Born Naïma Kefi, she was the daughter of Mohamad Kefi, a prominent Tunisian army general who held a high official position in the post-independence government. She met a young member of the Tunisian Army, Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, during the late 1950s or 1960s, though the circumstances of their meeting remain subject to some debate. Ben Ali's marriage to Naïma, the daughter of a high ranking general, immediately helped his career and eventually helped propel him to the presidency two decades later.

By the mid-1980s, Ben Ali, the then Director General of National Security, was having an affair with his mistress, Leïla Trabelsi, whom he had met in 1984, marking the beginning of the end of his marriage to Naïma Ben Ali.

Naïma Ben Ali remained in Tunis following the Tunisian Revolution, which ousted her ex-husband from power.