In some countries, like Spain, the danger of second homes is that they are illegally occupied. In Corsica, for different reasons, the risk is that they suffer an attack with explosives or a criminal arson. The island of beauty, incorporated into France in 1769, has suffered for decades from the phenomenon of attacks on homes owned by so-called “continentals”. The problem has intensified in the last year. There have been about seventy cases, a routine that hardly makes headlines anymore.
The renewed harassment of fellow French citizens of the Hexagon who own houses in Corsica is the result of having exacerbated nationalist sentiment and malaise towards Paris. “Get out Frenchmen!” or “Away with speculators!†it is usually read on the graffiti left by the clandestine groups responsible for the attacks. Typically, explosions and fires take place when the owners are away. The intention is not to kill but to cause material damage and intimidate, so that outsiders leave and dissuade others who intend to build a refuge in the privileged Mediterranean enclave.
The trigger for this hot new phase of the Corsican question was the death of Yvan Colonna, in March last year, weeks after being brutally attacked, in the Arles prison, by a radicalized Muslim inmate. Colonna was serving a life sentence for the assassination of the prefect Claude Érignac in 1998, a terrorist action with enormous impact and whose consequences are still ongoing. The Corsican nationalists considered that the State was to some extent co-responsible for the deadly attack on Colonna for not having protected him as it should and for refusing for years to ease the serving of his sentence and transfer him to a prison on the island, close to his family. The riots after Colonna’s death are feared to have given birth to a new generation of extremist nationalist youth.
The criminal fires and bombs bear the signature of the reconstituted Corsican National Liberation Front (FLNC) or of new groups that are ideologically very close, such as the Corsican Clandestine Youth (GCC). They justify their violent campaign against the mainlanders by the fact that almost 30% of the island’s housing stock are second homes with owners who do not live in Corsica. The saboteurs denounce real estate speculation and its derived consequences, among them that access to housing is prohibitive for many islanders, especially young people. It is a problem suffered by other very dense tourist areas in Europe, but which in Corsica reaches a level of perhaps greater severity and is complicated by nationalist and independence claims, added to historical resentments towards Paris.
It is paradoxical that the increase in attacks on second homes is taking place just as what has been dubbed “the Beauvau process (the headquarters of the Ministry of the Interior in Paris)” is taking place. There have already been four meetings between the Corsican leaders – including its regional president, the autonomist Gilles Simeoni – and the head of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, the man appointed by President Emmanuel Macron to try to find a consensual and lasting solution to the dispute with the rebel island. After the last meeting, last Wednesday, Simeoni was cautiously optimistic about the attitude of the Government and the prospect of progress.
A possible constitutional amendment is on the table to unequivocally recognize the Corsican singularity and its right to autonomy. But the stumbling block lies in the interpretation and scope of that autonomy, both in financial, cultural and identity terms. The restriction of the rights of continentals to buy real estate is also discussed and controversial, under pressure from the attacks. Another relevant sticking point is the language. Until now, Paris – and Macron clearly reiterated it when he visited the island in 2018 – has refused to make privateering co-official because it would question the constitutional principle that French is the language of the Republic and a factor of cohesion – and uniformity – for a long time. more than two centuries. France tolerates, with little enthusiasm, bilingualism, but closes the band to co-officiality with the territorial languages. It is difficult for the Corsican nationalists to compromise on this aspect.
