The FLNC rejects the autonomy statute and threatens non-Corsicans

The clandestine armed group Front de Libération nationale corse - Union des Combattants has rejected the autonomy statute planned for Corsica and issued threats to non-Corsicans considering a move to the island. The French national anti-terrorism prosecutor has opened an investigation.

The announcement came at a clandestine press conference, revealed by Corse-Matin, the only news outlet present at an undisclosed location. Around fifteen armed and hooded people took part, calling the autonomy process a «pagliacciata», a farce.

The institutional process, by contrast, is well advanced. The French National Assembly approved the constitutional bill on 23 June, and the Senate is expected to examine it from 21 October.

The accusations against the nationalist parties

According to the group the law «porta alla negazione dell'esistenza del nostro popolo e al diniego delle principali rivendicazioni» ("leads to the denial of our people's existence and to the rejection of the main demands"). The accusation is not aimed only at Paris: the FLNC also charges the nationalist parties with deception, naming Femu a Corsica, Core in Fronte and the Parti de la nation corse.

Settlement is central to the statement. The group denounces what it calls «galoppante» colonisation, rampant colonisation, pointing to the arrival of around 5,000 new residents, mostly French nationals, who came for work or to buy second homes.

From this follows its position on the constitutional project, which the FLNC considers a serious political error precisely because it would make that settlement possible.

The harshest passage is addressed to those arriving from outside. The group's message is «restate a casa vostra» ("stay at home"), with the warning «non consideratevi al sicuro sul nostro territorio nazionale» ("do not consider yourselves safe on our national territory").

The episode shows the distance between the institutional negotiation and its political base. The autonomy project grew out of years of talks between Paris and the elected nationalist parties, and it is precisely that route the clandestine group contests, along with those who pursued it.

For Italian-speaking Switzerland the case has a distant but not irrelevant echo. Tension between a long-established resident population and newcomers in tourist regions with a strong second-home market recurs, in wholly different forms and intensity, across the Alpine arc as well.