This file picture shows a demonstration held in
solidarity with the protests. (Getty Images)
Anti-government protests hit Tunisia for a second day running on Sunday, with around 4,000 demonstrators gathering in Central Tunis to demand the resignation of Mohamed Ghannouchi's transitional government.
Many waved Tunisian flags and banners proclaiming: "Resignation of the prime minister, Constituent Assembly, Parliamentary System" or "Tunisia is ours and not to others. No to French interference."
One demonstrator climbed atop a lamp post and urged the crowd to chant: "The people want to bring the government down."
No incidents were reported but police helicopters circled overhead as the demonstrators answered a call to protest on Facebook.
On Saturday, hundreds of Tunisians had marched to demand a secular state following the murder of a Polish priest, verbal attacks on Jews and an attempt by Islamists to set fire to a brothel.
Ghannouchi was prime minister under deposed president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali from 1999 until Ben Ali was ousted in a popular revolt on January 14.
"We are against Ghannouchi's government because our revolution has led to nothing with Ghannouchi, this is Ben Ali's team and it has changed nothing," teacher Samia Mahfoudh, 50, said at today's rally. "It's a bluff."
"They are taking us for fools. All the members of the government and the regional councils have been elected by the former regime, the constitution has been reformed by the former regime. The RCD wants to sow terror," said another protestor, Sami Ben Moumen, referring to the officially suspended former ruling party.
On January 17, Ghannouchi took the reins of a transitional government of national unity, which included many ministers who were part of the old regime.
The authorities have appointed a panel to prepare free elections due in six months while several Opposition parties have demanded the election of a constituent assembly to write a new constitution.
On Saturday, demonstrators gathered in the main Avenue Bourguiba in Tunis waving placards reading "Secularism = Freedom and Tolerance" and "Stop Extremist Acts".
The murder of 34-year-old priest Marek Rybinski, found dead Friday with his throat slit in the garage of a private religious school at Manouba near the capital, was the first of a foreigner or priest since Ben Ali was toppled.
The priest's body was found as hundreds of Islamists rallied in Tunis Friday calling for the closure of brothels in the city. A march on a street housing one of the best-known brothels was thwarted by police.
Anti-Jewish slogans were shouted outside the main Tunis synagogue earlier this month.