President Beji Caid Essebsi said Wednesday that the army will protect Tunisia's main economic assets from being disrupted by protests over social and labour issues.

"We know this is a serious decision but it must be taken," Essebsi said in a speech in Tunis.

The Tunisian government has faced growing social discontent over the economy, especially in inland regions, with protesters often staging sit-ins that block access to production sites.

"Any person who wants to demonstrate can demonstrate, within the framework of the law... But if you want to demonstrate and the first thing you do is to stop Tunisia's production... if you obstruct our few resources, where does that get us?" Essebsi asked.

"When they (demonstrators) get angry, they cut off roads. The roads belong to everyone and the state must face this," the president said.

He singled out the phosphate industry in the central mining region of Gafsa that had "come to a halt for five years".

"What do we have? We have phosphate, petrol and tourism, we have agriculture," including olive oil, he said. "The state must also protect the resources of the Tunisian people."

"That's why, taking all this into consideration... from now on the army will protect the sources" of Tunisia's production, the president said.

Essebsi said the army would put an end to roads being blocked.

"I warn you from now," that dealing with the military will become "difficult", he said, although he added parliament would examine his initiative.

Defence ministry spokesman Belhassen Oueslatim, contacted by AFP, said the army had already been summoned to a number of sites, including in the south.

However, the coordinator of a sit-in in El-Kamour, near oil fields in southern Tunisia, remained defiant in the wake of Essebsi's speech.

"We will not give in," Tarek Haddad said on Mosaique FM radio station.

Six years since a revolution that toppled longtime dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, Tunisia has been unable to resolve issues of poverty, unemployment and corruption that sparked the uprising.

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