Tunisian police on Wednesday fired tear gas to disperse hundreds of Salafist demonstrators outside the U.S. embassy in Tunis gathered to condemn a film deemed offensive to Islam, an Agence France Presse photographer said.

He said the intervention came as the demonstrators, estimated to number 300, started to try to break through the gates of the embassy compound after having demonstrated peacefully for several hours outside.

Protesters took to the streets in western Tunisia on Saturday, reigniting tensions in the impoverished town of Kasserine, an Agence France Presse correspondent said.

Dozens of residents who had occupied the governor's office on Thursday staged a sit-in at the Tunisian labor union's premises in the town of Kasserine, with 23 of them claiming to be on hunger strike.

Thousands of people protested in Tunis on Friday, mostly supporters of the ruling Islamist party Ennahda, demanding that Tunisia be "cleansed" of corrupt remnants of the ousted Zine el Abidine Ben Ali regime.

The crowd gathered in the Kasbah, the site of government headquarters, calling for administrative purges in the media and political opposition, notably members of the exiled dictator's RCD party that once dominated Tunisian politics, to be speeded up, an AFP journalist reported.

Rescuers searched Friday for missing would-be migrants after plucking 54 people from the sea after their boat sank off the coast of the Italian island of Lampedusa overnight, rescue services said.

The Italian coastguards along with customs police and NATO ships were taking part in the search, the ANSA news agency reported.

The Congress for the Republic, the party of the Tunisian president, has re-elected as secretary general an ex-minister who quit the government in June, amid simmering tensions with the ruling Islamist party.

The CPR announced early on Monday, at the end of its annual conference, that Mohammed Abbou, who resigned as administrative reform minister in June over obstacles in the fight against corruption, would remain head of the party.

The head of a Tunisian TV channel whose satirical show was abruptly pulled last week at a time of strained relations between the media and government Saturday denounced the issuing of a warrant for his arrest.

However, Ettounsiya director Sami Fehri also told the Express FM radio station he would not fight the warrant.

Hundreds of suspected Salafist militants attacked the central Tunisia district of Sidi Bouzid overnight, wounding at least seven people, witnesses and a police source said Thursday.

Witnesses told Agence France Presse the assailants came by cars and the police did not intervene to stop the clashes.

Radical Islamists obstructed a stand-up comedy performance by Tunisian actor Lotfi Abdelli, the ministry of culture said on Wednesday, accusing those responsible of attacking freedom of expression.

"The attack by people associated with the Salafist movement on the Bayrem Ettounsi cultural center in the town of Menzel Bourguiba" prevented Lotfi's show "100% Halal" from taking place, the ministry said in a statement.

Hundreds of protesters demonstrated against Tunisia's ruling Islamist party during a general strike Tuesday in Sidi Bouzid, hub of the 2011 uprising, Agence France Presse reported.

Residents of Sidi Bouzid were among hundreds of members of the political opposition and trade unions, as well as civil society groups and employer organizations to march towards the court house on the outskirts of the town.

Police fired tear gas and rubber bullets late Thursday to disperse a second anti-government protest in the central Tunisian town of Sidi Bouzid, birthplace of last year's revolution.

Some 800 demonstrators furious at police intervention against a protest earlier in the day threw stones at security forces who again replied with rubber bullets and tear gas.