Niçard Italians ( ) are Italians who have full or partial Nice heritage by birth or ethnicity.
History
Niçard Italians have roots in Nice and the County of Nice. They often speak the Ligurian language after Nice joined the Genoa league formed by the cities of Liguria at the end of the 7th century. In 729, with Genoese help, Nice expelled the Saracens from its territory.
During the Middle Ages, as an Italian city, Nice participated in numerous Italian wars. As an ally of the Republic of Pisa, it was also an enemy of the Republic of Genoa. In 1388, Nice placed itself under the protection of the Comital family of Savoy, led by Amadeus VII, Count of Savoy, in an anti-Provençal function (creating the County of Nice). On 25 October 1561, following the Edict of Rivoli, Italian replaced Latin as the language for drafting official documents of the County of Nice. Niçard Italians, with their Niçard dialect, considered themselves completely Italian during the Renaissance, according to Nice scholars such as Enrico Sappia.
The French penetration began in the early 18th century when numerous Occitan peasants moved to the mountainous hinterland of the county of Nice occupied by the French, and reached its apogee at the time of the French Revolution when Nice was annexed to France for the first time. Italians from Nice reacted with the guerrilla warfare of "Barbetismo".
The so-called "Savoy period" (which lasted from 1388 to 1860) ended with Risorgimento. After the Treaty of Turin was signed in 1860 between the Sardinian king and Napoleon III as a consequence of the Plombières Agreement, the county was again and definitively ceded to France as a territorial reward for French assistance in the Second Italian War of Independence against Austria, which saw Lombardy united with Piedmont-Sardinia. King Victor-Emmanuel II, on April 1, 1860, solemnly asked the population to accept the change of sovereignty, in the name of Italian unity, and the cession was ratified by a regional referendum. Italophile manifestations and the acclamation of an “Italian Nice” by the crowd are reported on this occasion. These manifestations cannot influence the course of events. A plebiscite was voted on April 15 and April 16, 1860. The opponents of annexation called for abstention, hence the very high abstention rate. The “yes” vote won 83% of registered voters throughout the county of Nice and 86% in Nice, partly thanks to pressure from the authorities. This is the result of a masterful operation of information control by the French and Piedmontese governments, in order to influence the outcome of the vote in relation to the decisions already taken. The irregularities in the plebiscite voting operations were evident. The case of Levens is emblematic: the same official sources recorded, faced with only 407 voters, 481 votes cast, naturally almost all in favor of joining France.
The Italian language was the official language of the County, used by the Church, at the town hall, taught in schools, used in theaters and at the Opera, was immediately abolished and replaced by French. Discontent over annexation to France led to the emigration of a large part of the Italophile population, also accelerated by Italian unification after 1861. A quarter of the population of Nice, around 11,000 people from Nice, decided to voluntarily exile to Italy. The emigration of a quarter of the Niçard Italians to Italy took the name of Niçard exodus. Many Italians from Nizza then moved to the Ligurian towns of Ventimiglia, Bordighera and Ospedaletti, giving rise to a local branch of the movement of the Italian irredentists which considered the re-acquisition of Nice to be one of their nationalist goals.