Juliette Bessis

At the age of 17, she became active in the Tunisian Communist Party, promoting anti-fascist struggles and resisting the German occupation of Tunisia from November 1942 to May 1943. During that time, she met Aldo Bessis (1918-1969) and they married on 3 February 1944, but she did not change her last name to Bessis until her first daughter Sophie Bessis was born.[1][2]

After studying at the Lycée Armand Fallières (now known as Lycée de la Rue de Russie) in Tunis and Bessis studied at Ecole des Hautes Etudes de Tunis, which later became Tunis University (affiliated with the Sorbonne in Paris), and earned her bachelor's degree in the early 1950s. In 1956, she was appointed professor at the Khaznadar annex of Sadiki College. A specialist in contemporary Maghreb history, her research focused on fascist politics in the Mediterranean, Tunisian trade unionism and contemporary Libya. She earned her Ph.D. in contemporary history at the Sorbonne.[2]

Bessis was a teacher at the Khaznadar high school until 1962.[3]

In 1962, when the Tunisian civil service began purging its senior ranks of Jewish officials, the Bessis family left Tunisia, moving first to Cameroon where Aldo joined the United Nations agency for food and agriculture (FAO). There Juliette became a Unesco expert and was named professor of history in Yaoundé at the Ecole normale supérieure, which was part of the French university system. In 1964, the family moved to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia for a few months before Aldo Bessis was reassigned to FAO headquarters in Rome. Soon after that, the family relocated to Geneva where Aldo died in 1969. Juliette and her daughters finally moved to Paris in 1972.[2][4]

Throughout her life, Bessis researched fascist politics in the Mediterranean and documented Mussolini's ambitions to reestablish, under his rule, the ancient Roman Empire.[3] Her research formed the basis of her book titled La Méditerranée Fasciste (The Fascist Mediterranean) describing. Mussolini's Italy and its influence on Tunisia before and during the Second World War.[3]

She subsequently taught in Paris at the Institute of Political Studies, often called Sciences Po, and at the University of Paris-VIII.[2]

Juliette Bessis died on 18 March 2017 at the age of 91 in Paris.[3]

In 2017, her daughter Sophie Bessis announced that she had donated her parents' library, a collection of books and newspapers on the history of Tunisia and the Maghreb, to the National Library of Tunis.[5][6]