CORA
is watching you !
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National Liberation Front of Corsica |
Fronte di Liberazione Naziunale di a Corsica, Front de Lib?ration Nationale de la Corse
| Submitted by Gunter Lauwers Free University Brussels, Belgium The FLNC was founded in 1976, after a merger of two other Corsican terrorist organizations: Ghjustizia Paolina and the Fronte Paesanu Corsu di Liberazione. At the end of the eighties and the beginning of the nineties, political rivalry within the nationalist movement led to several schisms in the underground scene. As a consequence, the FLNC split into the ‘canal historique’ (historic channel) and the ‘canal habituel’ (usual channel), followed by a whole series of new splits and the creation of a number of other terrorist organizations: Resistenza, Fronte Ribellu, Front Arm? R?volutionnaire Corse... Some of these groups only existed for a few years, did not represent much in terms of activities or merged again after a while. The FLNC-canal historique and the FLNC-canal habituel thus remained the most important terrorist organizations, although the latter decided to end activities in 1997. In 1999, the FLNC-canal historique merged with some of the other underground organizations, adopting the name ‘FLNC’ again. The main objectives of the FLNC actually are :
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The FLNC has a loose commitment to leftist ideologies and claims to fight the
‘internal colonialism’ of France, but is not well rooted on the ideological
level.
The organization is closely linked to a political party, A Cuncolta
Independentista, which is considered as its legal representative. A
Cuncolta is the only nationalist party with a delegation in the Corsican
Assembly. All other – more moderate – nationalist parties failed in this respect
due to a 5%-threshold at the regional elections of 1999.
The actual number of FLNC-members is hard to ascertain but is estimated at 600.
This number corresponds with the number of armed militants present during a
nocturnal press conference of the FLNC on 11 January 1996 in the Corsican
village of Tralonca. The organization is primarily organized and active in
Corsica and not as such in continental France, although a significant share of
the Corsican diaspora – mainly living in cities close to the Mediterranean like
Marseille, Nice, Toulon or major cities like Paris and Lyon – supports the
Front. The FLNC is organized in a atomized, horizontal manner rather than a
rigid piramid-structured way and consists of relatively independent cells which
cover a well defined geographical area of Corsica for its military, political or
financial activities.
The financial sources of the FLNC are armed robberies of banks, extortion
through the practice of ‘revolutionary taxes’ and criminal activities alike. The
organization has probably links with the ‘Arm?e R?volutionnaire Bretonne’
(ARB), a small terrorist group striving for an independent Brittany.
Most of the attacks of the FLNC are perpetrated on Corsica, whereas only a minor
number takes place in continental France. The organization must be regarded as
responsible for some thousands of attacks since its creation in 1976, although -
at least until the beginning of the nineties - there were only occasionally
casualties to deplore. The attacks of the FLNC are principally aimed at public
infrastructure, banks, tourist facilities, military or police buildings and
other symbolic targets of the ‘colonial state’ in Corsica. The nineties showed
another picture, however. Due to the fast growing rivalry between different
factions of the underground nationalist scene, dozens of people were killed in a
‘fratricidal war’ and the number of mortal attacks on French officials like
mayors, policemen, etc. mounted as well. An evolution that culminated in 1998 in
the assassination of prefect Claude Erignac, the highest representative of the
French Republic on the island (although the FLNC denied any responsability and
publicly even rejected this attack). Despite this radicalization, inter-communal
violence or blind terror is – contrary to Northern-Ireland or the Basque
Provinces in Spain, for example – not a common feature in Corsica.
Since the reconciliation of the different nationalist factions at the end of the nineties, violence between these groups has decreased. The total number of casualties due to nationalist violence since the mid-seventies (all armed groups together) is estimated at 220, although it is sometimes difficult to ascertain whether an assassination is politically motivaded or a purely criminal act. This counts for lot of terrorist attacks in Corsica, since underground nationalist organizations are increasingly involved with maffia-style activities on the island.
For a chronology of the most important attacks of the FLNC and other Corsican terrorist organizations, see http://www.bsos.umd.edu/cidcm/mar/frcorsic.htm
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