The emigration of French in Tunisia

Maurice WOLKOWITSCH

article published in the Annales de Géographie. 1959, vol. 68, no. 367

The accession of young States to Independence brings about a new status for the populations whose settlement was contemporaneous with the establishment of the colonial regime. Various elements of these national groups consider their return to the country from which they themselves or their ancestors originated. Thus, a regular migratory flow is established; it will no doubt continue until the near-total disappearance of the allogenous populations. It is some reflections on the characteristics of these movements departing from Tunisia that we would like to present.

The sources.

The statistics compiled by the Secretary of State for the Interior make it possible to follow the general evolution of entries and exits, broken down by national groups ¹. The services of the French Embassy gather the data provided by the Consulates; but these deal essentially with the departure of French citizens receiving assistance for their professional resettlement: merchants, farmers, members of the liberal professions. This information covers only the working population and alone allows an assessment of the migrants' activities. Finally, the geographical distribution of immigrants in France cannot be studied in Tunis: all the documentation on this aspect of the movement is, it appears, gathered in Paris at the Centre for the Reorientation of French Repatriates from North Africa.

General evolution of migratory movements between France and Tunisia.

French immigration continued in Tunisia until 1953, a year in which entries still exceeded exits by 2,534 units; admittedly, many civil servants and executives in industry and banking spent part of their career in Tunisia, then returned to mainland France; but others, more attracted by material comforts, settled there: the apartment buildings and villas that today cover parts of the hills of Montfleury and Belvédère are the living trace of their passage and also of their hopes of awaiting retirement here, or even spending it here. 1954 marks a turning point: the year's balance shows for the first time a deficit for French immigration: 2,133 departures were recorded. From then on, a movement was set in motion, whose magnitude grew considerably. The figures imperfectly reflect the actual number of departures, particularly for the year 1957, which saw the arrival, for two years, of several hundred civil servants under the technical and cultural assistance program.

In fact, from the end of the Second World War onwards, concern for the future took hold of the various professions: massive capital transfers were made to purchase estates and apartments. As early as 1949, we had observed in Touraine and in Champagne berrichonne purchases of this kind by French people from Algeria; similar examples were reported to us in Aquitaine by French people from Tunisia at a very similar date. These facts remained nevertheless isolated and attracted little attention for the dual reason that they were not accompanied by human movements and that they did not yet fit within a context of political crisis.

Conditions of departure and professional composition of the migratory movement.

The proclamation of Independence ² changed the situation: the exodus begun in 1954 continued, intensified in 1955, and reached very great proportions from 1956 onwards. The decision to leave stemmed from various causes depending on the individuals. Three different groups can be identified, whose share in the emigration varied from year to year. Their members were drawn unequally from the different social and professional strata.

1. Forced migrants had to leave the country because they could no longer practice their profession there. Civil servants in departments now run by Tunisians found themselves in this situation: this was immediately the case for police and customs agents, local administration officials, and some of those in central government. The replacement of French personnel by national staff progressively extended to ever broader sectors of the civil service and nationalized enterprises: successive waves forced the migration of railway workers (end of 1957), civil aviation staff (during 1958), to cite only two examples. Out of 13,000 civil servants, more than 10,000 left Tunisia. Private enterprises did not escape this trend, and nearly 5,000 employees in the private sector (executives and workers) left in three years.

   In this forced migration, holders of less specialized positions were the first targeted, as the replacement of executives often required some additional time.

2. People of all social conditions drawn from all professional categories left because they did not wish to remain in a Tunisia that no longer corresponded to their views and where they no longer enjoyed all the material advantages they had previously benefited from ⁴.

   The case of many of the 5,000 retirees or persons of independent means who left is quite characteristic in this regard: elderly couples often hastily abandoned comfort and relative ease for a life that was, all things considered, more difficult in France, where some of them had never lived.

   This movement, very noticeable in 1956 when it affected those who could leave quickly (civil servants, retirees, salaried employees), was fed in 1957 by merchants and settlers who had to settle their affairs before departing.

3. The emigrations previously defined and the gradual withdrawal of military forces reduced the clientele of merchants, artisans, doctors, and lawyers. Some of them tried to hold on. Gradually, their numbers diminished: a doctor in Tunis told us, speaking of his French colleagues: "...we are all here on a temporary basis; besides, we see all the houses where we used to go regularly closing down; how would we make a living?" Merchants, during the Christmas holidays, readily confided that they might perhaps last one more winter, but that they could not hold on any longer. These facts highlight how much the clientele was distributed along national lines ⁵. The departure of civil servants and military personnel, whose presence with their families formed a large numerical contingent, undermined the economic situation of the entire part of the French community that counted on them as the basis of their clientele.

Emigration occurred at a particularly rapid pace in towns with a small European population; the feeling of isolation was more acute there; financial difficulties immediately threatened businesses: this was the case for many towns in the South and West (Table III). Tunis, which had one-third European population, and Sfax, are the two cities that still present a diverse population; the case of Bizerte and Menzel-Bourguiba is obviously linked to that of the military base and related industrial facilities.

Total emigration in 1958 represents 80 percent of that in 1957; if one considers only the working population, this percentage drops to 50 percent: this disparity shows that heads of household generally left first and prepared the conditions for the arrival of their wives and children; this observation is particularly valid for professional circles where resettlement was more difficult (non-salaried professions).

The case of other European groups.

Emigration did not affect the French community alone. Italians and Maltese also left Tunisia. Their movement followed a similar evolution to that of the French: for the Italians, entries still exceeded exits in 1953 (576 entries); and 1954 marks here too the turning point in the evolution (Table IV): 1,325 Maltese left Tunisia between 1955 and 1958, with the year 1957 being that of the maximum departures (513), as for the French and the Italians.

It is noted, however, that the Italian population decreased by only 21 percent since the 1956 census, whereas this percentage rises to 52 percent for the French population ⁶. Several reasons can be put forward to explain this difference. The Italians held no public positions whose exercise was claimed by Tunisians; there is therefore no equivalent of the emigration of civil servants which, including families, accounts for more than a third of French movements. The Italians did not have the possibility of as easy a retreat as the French: many had left their country because they could not make a living there and did not consider returning; for them, departure to France was only possible with work contracts, and some hesitated to make longer journeys to Latin America where others had gone. Finally, one does not find to the same degree among the Italians, particularly in working-class circles, a feeling of frustration widespread among the French.

The French almost all return to France. Two isolated cases can be cited of settlers who chose to establish themselves, one in Canada, the other in Brazil; it is true that an association has just been formed to facilitate the departure of farmers who might wish to go to the latter country; but they are still studying the practical conditions for carrying out these projects (capital transfers, currency exchange, etc.).

The decrease in the number of departures recorded in 1958 suggested that a new equilibrium had been reached; a mass of French and Italian population having accepted the new political conditions seemed likely to remain in various branches of economic activity alongside technical and cultural assistance personnel, who were moreover destined to be rapidly replaced by Tunisian managers. Recently announced plans cast doubt on whether this solution will be achieved. The buyback of settlers' lands will revive the flow of forced migration that other measures of lesser scope regularly sustain, such as the withdrawal of licenses from taxi drivers, which affected nearly two hundred workers in December 1958.

The data from the census of 1 February 1956 are outdated with regard to the European population: the population of Tunisia then stood at 3,783,169 inhabitants, of whom 255,324 were Europeans (180,440 French and 66,910 Italians). These two groups can today be estimated at 85,000 and 52,500 out of a total of approximately 152,000 Europeans. It is certainly not the very small arrivals of Germans (224, of whom 183 in 1958) and Americans (382, of whom 219 in 1957) that numerically alter the situation.

Source:
Wolkowitsch Maurice. The emigration of French from Tunisia.
In: Annales de Géographie. 1959, vol. 68, no. 367. pp. 253-257.
http://www.persee.fr/web/revues/home/prescript/article/geo_0003-4010_1959_num_68_367_16315

1. History of modern Tunisia, Jean-François MARTIN
2. The emigration of French in Tunisia, Maurice WOLKOWITSCH
3. Les Italiens en Tunisie, de Henri DE MONTETY
4. Le recensement de 1906 en Algérie et en Tunisie, de Augustin BERNARD
5. Les données du problème tunisien, de Henri DE MONTETY
6. Evolution et comportement démographiques des Juifs de Tunisie sous le protectorat français (1881-1956), de Jacques TAIEB
7. Juifs du Maghreb : onomastique et langue, une composante berbère ?, de Jacques TAIEB
8. De mémoire maltaise, de Hatem BOURIAL