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| Chokri Belaid |
Mr Belaid was shot in the neck and head in the capital, Tunis, in the first political assassination since the Arab Spring uprising of January 2011.
Police fired tear gas to disperse thousands of people protesting against his killing in Tunis and other towns.
The Islamist-led government said the murder was an "odious assassination".
President Moncef Marzouki said he was cutting short a visit to France and cancelling a trip to Egypt to return home to deal with the crisis.
Mr Belaid was a respected human rights lawyer, and a left-wing secular opponent of the government which took power after the overthrow of long-serving rule Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali.
The Popular Front (PF), a coalition of opposition groups of which Mr Belaid was a member, said it was calling for a nationwide strike on Thursday to protest against his assassination.
It also said it was pulling out of the Constituent Assembly, which has been battling to draft a new constitution for Tunisia.
The BBC's Sihem Hassaini in Tunis says most people are likely to heed the call for the strike as the main Islamist party in government, Ennahda, is deeply unpopular at the moment.
Businesses, universities and schools are expected to stay closed on Thursday, she says.
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