Les Vêpres Marseillaises

The name refers to the "Sicilian Vespers" when, in 1282, the French settled in Sicily were massacred and driven off the island.

In 1860, Italy was a fledgling kingdom lacking cohesion. Its unity took shape under the impetus of Victor Emmanuel II, then head of the Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia, and Giuseppe Garibaldi, the Italian politician and patriot born in Nice in 1807.
In 1866, the peninsula's economic situation was complicated. One financial crisis followed another, and Italians emigrated to France, whose power and dynamism embodied for them the hope of a better life.
As a result, in 1881 Marseille had over 60,000 Italian workers for a population of 400,000; unfortunately, as is often the case with immigration, the Italians had the reputation of accepting the hardest jobs without complaint, while driving down wages; moreover, the instability of the country in the making meant that there was a strong anarchist movement, and it was feared that they would flee to France.
Triggering
The conquest of the Maghreb countries had been in full swing since France had colonized Algeria in 1830, and colonial competition was raging between the European powers, with Italy keen to join in. Tunisia was the object of competition between Italian and French imperialism.
The Bardo Treaty of May 12, 1881 brought Tunisia under French control, even though Italy had designs on the country and the Bey of Tunis refused Garibaldi permission to land on Tunisian soil. On June 17, 1881, the French troops returning from Africa were cheered by the people of Marseilles, and whistles that the crowd attributed to the Italians were heard. For three days, a veritable "hunt for Italians" was organized, resulting in three dead and twenty-one wounded.
Some political commentators, most notably the liberal economist Paul Leroy-Beaulieu openly encouraged xenophobia towards Italians.
However, relations between the labor communities were generally good, labor unions called for solidarity between French and Italian workers, and reason eventually prevailed.
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