Italians in France

Middle Ages and Renaissance There has always been migration, since ancient times, between what is today Italy and France. This is especially true of the regions of northwestern Italy and southeastern France. As Italian wealth and influence grew during the Middle Ages, many Florentine, Genoese and Venetian traders, bankers and artisans settled, usually through family branches, throughout France. Regions of significant Italian diaspora sprang up as far north as Paris and Flanders. However it was not much as a percentage of the French global population. This Italian migration developed more through the Renaissance, as previous generations became assimilated. Italian artists, writers and architects were called upon by the French monarchy and aristocrats, leading to a significant interchange of culture, but it was not a massive immigration of popular classes. The 17th and 18th centuries were the era of the Italian dancers, musicians, ''commedia dell'arte'' troupes and actors of the theatre Hôtel de Bourgogne. Since the 16th century, Florence and its citizens have long enjoyed a very close relationship with France. In 1533, at the age of 14, Catherine de' Medici married Henry, the second son of King Francis I and Queen Claude of France. Under the gallicised version of her name, Catherine de Médicis, became Queen consort of France when Henry ascended to the throne in 1547. Later on, after Henry died, she became regent on behalf of her 10-year-old son King Charles IX and was granted sweeping powers. After Charles died in 1574, Catherine played a key role in the reign of her third son, Henry III. Other notable examples of Italians that played a major role in the history of France include Cardinal Mazarin, born in Pescina was a cardinal, diplomat and politician, who served as the chief minister of France from 1642 until his death in 1661. Mazarin succeeded his mentor, Cardinal Richelieu, and extended France's political ambitions not only within Italy but towards England as well. Enrico Tonti, born near Gaeta, Italy (c. 1649–1704) was a soldier, explorer, and fur trader in the service of France. He was the son of Lorenzo de Tonti, a financier and former governor of Gaeta. Enrico was second in command of the La Salle expedition on his descent of the Mississippi River. Tonti's letters and journals are valuable source materials on these explorations. Enrico's brother, Pierre Alphonse de Tonti, or Alphonse de Tonty, Baron de Paludy (c. 1659–1727) was an officer who served under the French explorer Cadillac and helped establish the first European settlement at Detroit, Michigan, Fort Pontchartrain du Detroit on the Detroit River in 1701. Several months later, both Cadillac and Tonty brought their wives to the fort, making them the first European women to travel into the interior of North America. He was the son of Lorenzo de Tonti who was a financier and former governor of Gaeta. Lorenzo de Tonti was the inventor of the form of life insurance known as the tontine. Henri de Tonti, involved in La Salle's exploration of the Mississippi River and the establishment of the first settlement in Arkansas, was his older son. Modern period Napoleon Bonaparte, French military dictator, general, and eventual emperor, was ethnically Italian of Corsican origin, whose family was of Genoese and Tuscan ancestry. Italian popular immigration to France only began in the late 18th century, really developed from the end of the 19th century until World War I, and became quite massive after this war. France needed workforce to compensate for the war losses and its very low birthrate. It was in the second half of the 19th century that Italian immigration to France assumed the connotations of a mass phenomenon. A census of the residents of the foreign community carried out in 1851 by the French authorities revealed that out of about 380,000 foreign residents, 63,000 were Italians (Piedmontese in primis). The number of Italians residing in France grew rapidly throughout the 19th century reaching the number of 165,000 in 1876 and 240,000 in 1881. It was from this date that Italian immigration to France began to decrease. The main causes were the economic recession that characterized the French economy in this period and the poor diplomatic relations between the two countries, due to the Tunisian question. The diplomatic crisis was further fueled by Italy's entry into the Triple Alliance in 1882. At the end of the 19th century it was quite common for Italian immigrants to send their children back to Italy until they were 12, before taking them back to France. To satisfy the requirements of the civil status, which then required choosing names from the French calendar, they called their children, for example, Albert and Marie, but, in the family context, everyone called them Alberto and Maria. Until the eve of World War I, the cause of Italian immigration to France was essentially economic. In France, there was a shortage of manpower, especially in agriculture and industry (factories and mines) and construction. French demands for Italian labor grew at the end of World War I. With the advent of fascism in Italy, emigration of political origin was added to economic emigration. During the 1920s there were many Italian politicians from various backgrounds who were forced to take refuge in France, including Eugenio Chiesa, Filippo Turati, Gaetano Salvemini, Carlo Rosselli, Nello Rosselli, Giuseppe Saragat, Pietro Nenni, Sandro Pertini and many others. But paradoxically there were also, albeit few, supporters of the fascist regime, such as the writer Pitigrilli, OVRA agent in Turin and Paris. In 1938, the French section of the National Fascist Party had only 3,000 members, represented by Nicola Bonservizi, assassinated in 1924 by an Italian anarchist in exile. The fascist regime intended to preserve the "Italian character" of the immigrants, wanting to prevent the assimilation of their compatriots by France. Thus he worked to promote patriotic exaltation by creating more than 200 sections of the National Association of Italian Veterans in French cities, placing the Italian associations under the control of the consulates, bringing together the peasants within cooperatives that depended on the Italian banks. On the contrary, the anti-fascists encouraged immigrants to integrate into French society by participating in social and political struggles alongside trade union organizations. Of these, almost 4,500 people were deprived of their French citizenship following the law of 22 July 1940, which accounted for almost a third of the disqualifications pronounced under this law promulgated by the Vichy regime. Furthermore, many Italians who already lived in the country rose socially, exercising free professions, entrepreneurs and traders, or restaurateurs. Initially, Italian immigration to modern France (late 18th to the early 20th century) came predominantly from northern Italy (Piedmont, Veneto), then from central Italy (Marche, Umbria), mostly to the bordering southeastern region of Provence. It was not until after World War II that large numbers of immigrants from southern Italy immigrated to France, usually settling in industrialised areas of France, such as Lorraine, Paris and Lyon. ==Demographics==