Italian Tunisians - Fascist Requests After 1938

Fascist Requests After 1938

The fact that the French government promoted actively the French citizenship between the Italians in Tunisia was one of the main reasons of the direct intervention of Mussolini in the Tunisian problems. From 1910 to 1926 the Italians were reduced by this French policy of assimilation from 105,000 to less than 90,000.

In the 1926 census of the Tunisian colony there were 173,281 Europeans, of which 89,216 were Italians, 71,020 French and 8,396 Maltese. Indeed, this was a relative majority that made Laura Davi (in his "Memoires italiennes en Tunisie" of 1936) write that "La Tunisia è una colonia italiana amministrata da funzionari francesi" (Tunisia is an Italian colony administered by French managers).

Initially, during the 1920s, Fascism promoted only the defense of the national and social rights of the Italians of Tunisia against the tentative of amalgamation done by France. Mussolini opened some financial institutions and Italian Banks (like the Banca siciliana) and some Italian newspapers (like L'Unione), but even Italian hospitals, teachers, cinemas, schools (primary and secondary) and health assistance organizations.

The March of Times (documentary of Time magazine) in 1939 stated that "...With 1 million trained soldiers and its powerful navy, Italy is in a position to execute its plan for Mediterranean conquest. Of all Mediterranean plums, none is so tempting to land-hungry Italy as France's North African protectorate—Tunisia. For nearly 60 years, Tunisia was reasonably contented. The country is fertile—a major producer of olive oil and fertilizer, it may also have oil. Tunisia has strategic importance in a major Mediterranean war and could make Rome again master of this sea.The French employ a Muslim figurehead, who, in return for his keep, is supposed to ensure that the Muslim population is content. The fascist imperial state of Italy has sent advance men sent into Tunisia, so that there are more Italians in French Tunisia than in all African colonies. Well supplied with fascist funds, Italy's consuls and their agents have long been busy systematically undermining French influence of authority. Italian banks are generous to Italian colonists, Italians have their own schools loyal to the fascist state of Italy, and many Tunisian newspapers are subsidized by Italy. Professional agitators are actively encouraging trouble, magnifying grievances, imaginary or real. Radio programs tell Muslims that Mussolini alone is their protector. Membership in the Fascist Party is all but compulsory for every Italian male in Tunisia, and refusing to join means virtual banishment. Granted free speech and free assembly by French law, fascist leaders in Tunisia have become loud and aggressive in demanding special privileges for Italians, at the same time denouncing the French government, which tolerates their activities. Italy is making buildings that are easily convertible to military use, and building up the civil population to support a mass takeover..."

In 1940 Mussolini requested to France to give Tunisia (along with Djibouti, Corsica and Nice) to Italy, when World War II was just beginning. However it was only in November 1942 that Italian troops occupied (with Rommel's help) Tunisia and seized it from the Vichy regime. Tunisia administratively was added to Italy's Fourth Shore (in Italian Quarta Sponda) with Libya, in the last tentative attempt to realise Mussolini's project of Imperial Italy.

Some Tunisian Italians participated in the Italian Army, but in May 1943 the Allies conquered all Tunisia and the French authorities closed all the Italian schools and newspapers. From that moment the Italians were harassed by the French regime and so started a process of disappearance of the Italian community in Tunisia. This process was successively aggravated in the 1950s by the war of independence of the Tunisian Arabs against France.

In the 1946 census the Italians in Tunisia were 84,935, but in 1959 (3 years after many Italian settlers left to Italy or France after independence from France) they were only 51,702 and in 1969 less than 10,000. Today (2005) they are only 900, mainly concentrated in the metropolitan area of Tunis. Another 2000 Italians, according to the Italian Embassy in Tunis, are "temporary" residents, working as professionals and technicians in Italian companies in different areas of Tunisia.