Corsican terror

last updated 8 January 2015

Nice, France

Corsican extremists exploded two large bombs outside a French government building in Nice this week, injuring 16 people in nearby residences. A Corsican independence group, FLNC, took responsibility for the attacks. The group is angry over Corsican voters’ recent narrow rejection of a French plan to give the island more autonomy, as well as over the arrest of militant Yvan Colonna, who has become a kind of Che Guevara figure for the nationalists. French Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy said France would have to isolate the “Mafia elements” in Corsica and work with the moderates. Most Corsicans want the island, which was annexed from Italy in 1768, to remain part of France.