A Tunisian tried to burn himself to death in front of the governor's offices at Medenine in the south, to protest at his precarious working conditions, the TAP news agency reported Friday.

"I want to die so that my children can live," the man yelled before setting himself ablaze on Thursday, the agency said. Badly burned, he was transferred in the evening to a hospital in Tunis.

The man, aged 40, was coming out of the governor's offices after an interview where he was asking for his job to be made permanent, an employee in Medenine's local council told AFP.

The man had worked for years as a chauffeur for local officials, but had never been taken on definitively, she said.

It was the self-immolation on 17 December of a young fruit and vegetable seller, Mohamed Bouazizi, in the central town of Sidi Bouzid, which sparked off the popular uprising that led to the ouster on 14 January of present Zine El Abidine Ben Ali.