Abstract

In the aftermath of Italian unification, the Italian State began to deploy a series of school structures for its emigrants through its network of Italian schools abroad. These schools appeared at the end of the Nineteenth century and developed more extensively after the First World War. They were the result of private initiatives, or public undertakings coming directly from the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In France, they were established primarily in regions with high levels of Italian immigration. Faced with the proliferation of such structures, French authorities often took an ambiguous stance, split between the desire not to offend their Italian neighbours and the fear of seeing these structures compete with the French education system. This article intends to study the teaching and schooling methods offered to Italian children in the Alpes-Maritimes in order to demonstrate that the coexistence of these two school systems in the interwar period drew the contours of an emerging Franco-Italian educational space.