The first president, Habib Bourguiba, was the leader of the liberation movement, which emerged victorious much more quickly – and much less violently – than its counterpart in Algeria. A highly Westernized leader, Bourguiba maintained the secular character of the state that he took over from France, as well as many of its economic ties with the West (particularly France, of course), in a much more committed way than Algeria did after it gained independence.