This article provides a detailed analysis of the onset of Fascism in Tunisia’s Italian community, which constituted a European minority in a French protectorate, between the end of World War I and 1929. So far, historians of Italian migration in the Mediterranean and in colonial contexts have examined this topic, but they have mostly focused on the regime’s strategies, neglecting the reactions of the local community. This article adopts a different perspective, and focuses on Tunisia’s Italian community, which was faced with Fascism’s political and cultural initiatives. In order to achieve this goal, the author considers a wide range of sources, and relates Fascist documents with those of the local community (associations, newspapers, and private letters). The article highlights the complex relations that existed between the center and the periphery, the importance of the local context in redefining Fascism’s strategies of consensus, as well as the social actors involved in the process of Fascistization.
