The situation in Corsica, a permanent focus of discontent within France, has deteriorated again after the return of violent actions and the consequent arrest of pro-independence leaders. Last Thursday there were three arrests and this Monday there have been another eight. Protest mobilizations have been called.
The arrests are related to a clandestine press conference, in May 2021, in which the return on the scene of a reconstituted Corsican National Liberation Front (FLNC), an organization created in 1974 and which announced the end of the struggle, was announced. armed in 2014. The new group took the name FLNC Maghju 21. Since then there have been renewed attacks on police vehicles, construction companies and secondary homes owned by mainland Frenchmen. This last type of action was always one of the hallmarks of the radical Corsican independentistas, the spearhead of their strategy against French "colonization".
Among those arrested on Monday are Charles Peri, a former member of the executive bureau of the Corsica Libera party, suspected of being one of the exponents of the FLNC, his son Ghjuvan Battista Pieri and a grandson, Ghjiseppu-Maria Verdi.
It so happens that the Interior Minister, Gérald Darmanin, was to visit Corsica at the end of this week to discuss with the island's leaders a framework of autonomy for the territory. The visit has been postponed until January on the grounds that "the weather is not favourable." Darmanin was commissioned by President Macron to deal with the complicated Corsican dossier.
The death of Yvan Colonna, last March, after being attacked in prison by an Islamist, inflamed spirits. Colonna was serving a life sentence for the murder of the prefect Claude Érignac in 1998. There were demonstrations and a massive and highly demanding funeral in his town, Cargèse.
Corsica, with about 340,000 inhabitants, has been French since 1768, one year before the birth of Napoleon Bonaparte. His fit within the Republic is still problematic. The autonomists and independentistas would like many more regional powers and the co-official status of privateering. On the first, Paris is flexible but long. On co-officiality, Macron is blunt. He says he promotes bilingualism but not co-officiality, because "French is the language of the Republic."
