Tunisian youths staged a protest Friday in the country's south to demand jobs while a sit-in to demand the resignation of key cabinet members was also planned in the capital.

In Ben Guerdane, a southern coastal town near the Libyan border, a group of young unemployed graduates who have been demonstrating for weeks staged a symbolic "general strike", union leader Houssine Betaieb told AFP.

The demonstrators claimed their "right to employment" and complained that the government that is carrying the country's hopes after the January ouster of former president Zine el Abidine Ben Ali has failed to deliver.

An anti-government protest was also due to take place in Tunis' Kasbah, the epicentre of the popular revolt that unhinged one of the world's most entrenched dictators.

The protest was called for on the Internet by activists who demand the resignation of the interior and justice ministers, the judiciary's full independence and the prosecution of those responsible for the deadly repression of the democratic uprising.