One of the first Tunisians to oppose the law was Tahar Haddad who feared the desertion of his countrymen interested in the material benefits of naturalization. On November 13, 1923, he denounced "the opening for naturalizations means, at the minimum, that France wants Tunisians to become French one day. Is this not enough to prove that the French government is eager to suppress the Tunisian nation and the state that represents it, a state that France is committed by treaty to respect and even to defend?"[10]