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France and Italy

The "Tunisian question" had remained alive as an issue in Italy after 1881. Although Italy reluctantly acquiesced to the French occupation of Tunisia, a country that it also coveted, Italian public figures periodically gave voice to a lingering resentment of France for having "cheated" them of Tunisia. Complaints by Italian settlers against the French administration were a continuing irritant in relations between France and Italy, but Italians retained a special position in Tunisia, operating a separate school system sponsored by the Italian government. Italy's occupation of Libya in 1911 gave it a common colonial border with the French in Tunisia. France and Italy were allies in World War I, but relations steadily deteriorated after the rise of Benito Mussolini's fascist regime in Italy in 1922. Italian settlers in Tunisia came to be viewed as a potential security threat.

Legislation in 1921 provided that all Europeans born after that date in Tunisia would automatically have French nationality. Protests were lodged by both Italy and Britain against compulsory naturalization, which would entail liability for conscription, and in 1923 the British put the matter before the Permanent Court of International Justice in The Hague. The court found that Tunisian-born children of British subjects-the Maltese-would be entitled to reject French nationality, although that right could not be applied to succeeding generations. Some Italians, made uneasy by the rise of fascism in their homeland, voluntarily sought and received French citizenship, however. As a result, the 1924-25 period marked the point at which for the first time French citizens accounted for more than half of the European community in Tunisia, numbering nearly 200,000. Italians were also under economic pressure to become French citizens, which made them eligible for better pay-particularly in public utilities, where many of them were employed.

In 1935 Mussolini, who was anxious to ensure French non-involvement in his Ethiopian campaign, agreed to a treaty proposed by French premier Pierre Laval that would have gradually rescind. ed the special legal status of Italians in Tunisia and phased out their autonomous school system. The treaty also determined that after a 30-year transitional period, all Tunisian-born offspring of Italian parents would become French citizens. It is doubtful if Mussolini, who at that time already had reason to anticipate a radical alteration of the balance of power in Europe, considered these concessions to be permanently binding.

While on tour in Libya two years later, Mussolini proclaimed himself the "Sword of Islam" and offered Italy as the protector of Muslims under French and British rule. Italy became more reckless in putting forward its claim to Tunisia-as well as in citing its irredentist aspirations for Corsica and Nice-and in 1938 openly denounced the French protectorate. Frightened at the prospect of an Italian invasion, Tunisians rallied behind France as Europe moved toward war, and they demonstrated their support on the occasion of French premier Edouard Daladier's visit to Tunis in January 1939.