The paper examinesSecuritisation French responses to Italian migration to TunisiaTunisia during the protectorate and considers, though secondarily, Tunisian views at the dawn of independence. The reactions of French colonisers spanned from hostility and prejudice in the press to regulatory interventions and French settlement policies to contain Italian land acquisition. While migratory laws introduced controls and restrictions, thus increasing illegal crossing of the Strait of SicilySicily, naturalisation laws were meant to preserve the balance of the European population in French favour. In contrast with polemicists such as Jules Saurin who denounced the ‘Sicilian invasionInvasion’, French scholars and administrators, like Gaston Loth and Charles Monchicourt, advocated the collaboration and integration of the French and Italian elements on the basis of their common Latin background. In the decolonisationDecolonisation phase, Tunisians rejected all foreign presence, including that of Italians, for reasons of self-assertion and full sovereignty. The case of Italian migration to TunisiaTunisia enables us to assess, in a historical perspective, the validity of the securitization paradigm when faced with competing approaches on the ground.