Franco-Italian Agreement of 1935

[1] After its victory in World War I, it was agreed that Italy would not receive territories from the defeated German colonial empire.

That was considered by Italians to be very little compensation for their sacrifices in the bloody war, which was one of the reasons of the rise to power in Italy of Mussolini's fascism.

Laval had succeeded Louis Barthou as Foreign Minister after the latter's assassination in Marseilles on 9 October 1934, along with King Alexander I of Yugoslavia.

Laval borrowed the idea of his predecessor of a system of collective security to contain the threat of Hitler in Europe.

He proposed a treaty to Mussolini to define disputed parts of French Somaliland (now Djibouti) as part of Eritrea, redefine the official status of Italians in French Tunisia and give Italy a mainly-free hand to occupy Ethiopia during the Abyssinia Crisis.