After World War One, the entire Slovenian Littoral was annexed to Italy. During Fascism, a policy of Italianization was pursued, and all public use of Slovene was banished throughout the region. After World War Two, these areas were annexed to Socialist Yugoslavia, and the vast majority of the Italian-speaking population of the coastal town was either expelled by the Communist regime or decided to flee to Italy, in what became known as the Istrian Exodus. Only about a tenth of the Italian-speaking population remained. However, due to international and bilateral agreements that followed the dissolution of the Free Territory of Trieste, they were granted linguistic rights, and the entire territory of their traditional settlement became bilingual.