Egyptian telecoms tycoon Naguib Sawiris and French-Tunisian financier Tarak Ben Ammar unveiled a 100-million euro ($129-million) partnership to produce and distribute films and television programs in the Arab world and internationally.

Under the deal, Sawiris will buy a 30-percent stake in Ben Ammar's Italy's based Quinta Communications Italia, which made the announcement in a press release timed to coincide with the start of the Cannes film festival in France.

The Tunisian government has decided to ban the congress of hardline Salafist group Ansar al-Sharia due to take place at the end of this week, the ruling Islamist party's leader said Wednesday.

"The government has decided to prohibit this congress whose organizers have not obtained prior permission from the authorities as required by law," Ennahda party chief Rached Ghannouchi told a news conference.

The head of a radical Salafist group in Tunisia has threatened to wage war against the government, led by moderate Islamist party Ennahda, accusing it in a message posted online of un-Islamic policies.

"To the tyrants who think they are Islamists... know that the stupid things you are doing are dragging you to war," said Abu Iyadh, the fugitive leader of Ansar al-Sharia who is wanted by the police over deadly unrest last year.

Tunisian forces prevented on Sunday Salafists in two cities in the southeast from pitching tents to preach in, the private Shems FM radio reported, a day after police fired tear gas at the radical Islamists in the capital Tunis.

Police dispersed "without violence" Salafists trying to set up a tent in front of the headquarters of the governorate in Tataouine, 550 kilometers (around 365 miles) south of Tunis, the radio's correspondent said from the site.

President Moncef Marzouki on Saturday said a travel ban on Tunisians suspected of corruption must be lifted to help shore up the ailing economy and bolster national reconciliation after the 2011 uprising.

"We must strive to remove immediately these restrictions in order to set up a mechanism of reconciliation," Marzouki said of a ban that affects an estimated 0.4 percent of the country's businessmen.

Tunisian Foreign Minister Othmane Jarandi told Agence France Presse on Saturday that some 800 Tunisians are fighting in Islamist rebel ranks in Syria and said the country would work to repatriate its citizens taken prisoner there.

"We don't have exact numbers, since several people left the country illegally, but the most accurate estimate is a maximum of 800," fighting in Syria, he said.

Hundreds of Tunisians, including police, human rights activists and political party representatives, protested on Friday against "terrorism" after the government said two wanted jihadist groups had ties with al-Qaida.

Several hundred protesters gathered outside the national assembly shouting "Tunisia is free, terrorism out!" and waving placards with slogans including: "We support the security forces and the army in the war against terrorism."

The threat Islamist militants posed to Tunisia under ousted dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali was worse than the current threat, the ruling Islamist party Ennahda's leader Rached Ghannouchi said on Thursday.

"What happened in Soliman and Rouhia was worse than what is currently happening in Mont Chaambi, even if it is a massive crime," he told a news conference.

Press reports warned Thursday that Tunisia was "at war with international terrorism" after the government revealed that jihadists being pursued by the army have ties to al-Qaida and the Islamist rebellion in Mali.

French-language daily Le Temps raised fears of "a spiral of deadly violence similar to the one that ravaged Algeria" during its so-called black decade of civil war in the 1990s.

Prime Minister Ali Larayedh insisted on Wednesday that Tunisia's security situation was improving and that fugitive jihadist groups with links to al-Qaida would be defeated.

"The establishment of security in the country is progressing... But there are some small groups that continue to aggravate the situation," Larayedh told the national assembly.