Niçard exodus
The Niçard exodus was one of the first emigration phenomena that involved the Italian populations in the contemporary age. It was due to the refusal of a quarter of the Niçard Italians to stay in Nice after its annexation to France in 1861, which was decided after the Plombières Agreement. History. The exodus took place starting from 1861, concomitantly and following the annexation of Nice and its surroundings from the Kingdom of Sardinia to France, in application of the agreements signed between the governments of the two countries during the Second Italian War of Independence. Part of the  population — especially the wealthier classes — chose to emigrate to the new Italian state, retaining their Savoyard (and thus Italian) citizenship. The part of the Nice people who decided to stay underwent a process of forced Francization as many were irritated to the point of unleashing the "Niçard Vespers" 10 years later. As a result, out of a total of 44,000 inhabitants, over 11,000 people emigrated from Nice to Italy in the decade following 1861. After 1861, the French authorities favoured, and often imposed, a progressive spread of the French language to the detriment of Italian. All the publications of Italian  newspapers, such as "La Voce di Nizza" ("The Nice Voice"), were closed. Many surnames of the Nice people were changed (for example "Bianchi" became "Leblanc" and "Del Ponte", "Dupont"). The result was an initial rejection of France by many Nice people as the Italian irredentists became spokespersons for this rejection through their leader, Giuseppe Garibaldi, who was born in Nice. The exiles from Nice moved mainly to Liguria and to large Italian cities, such as Turin, Milan, Florence, Rome and Bologna, where they created organizations such as the "Association of Mutual Aid for Niçard Emigrants in Turin". After the "Niçard  Vespers" (1871), which were three days of uprisings of the inhabitants of Nice, promoted by Giuseppe Garibaldi in favour of the union of the county of Nice with the Kingdom of Italy, the last irreducible irredentists who supported the Italian Risorgimento, completing the exodus, were expelled from Nice. The most illustrious was Luciano Mereu, who was expelled from Nice with other famous Garibaldi Nizzards: Adriano Gilli, Carlo Perino and Alberto Cougnet. Garibaldi himself, who had been elected by the Niçard, refused his post in 1873, never to return to his hometown as a protest for what happened at Niçard Vespers . During the Italian occupation of Nice in 1942–43, the newspaper of the irredentists from Nice was restored, "Il Nizzardo" ("The Niçard"). It was directed by Ezio Garibaldi, grandson of Giuseppe Garibaldi. In those years, the periodical "Fert" was also renowned, the main voice of the Nice refugees in Italy after the annexation of Nice to France in 1861. Until the 1930s, the centre of Nice was still mostly Italian. Today, Italian characters survive in uses, customs and culture mainly along the border areas with Italy.