The National Liberation Front of Corsica is a name used by various guerrilla and paramilitary organizations that advocate an independent or autonomous state on the island of Corsica, separated from France. The original FLNC was founded on 5 May 1976 from a merger between two smaller armed groups: the Corsican Peasant Front for Liberation, and Ghjustizia Paolina. This organization persisted until 1990, when a 1988 ceasefire agreement caused the unstable organization to split into two organizations based around separate ideas. In 1999, various factions merged to form the FLNC-Union of Combatants, a larger organization and one of the FLNCs which still exist today. In the present day, there are four organizations still active with the FLNC name: The FLNC-UC, The FLNC-22 October, the FLNC-1976, and the FLNC-21 May. The FLNC-UC and FLNC-22U, the two largest and most active groups, often sign press releases and communiqués together, and have been allied since at least 2022. The political party Nazione was founded in 2024 from the political party Corsica Libera, the modern political wing of the FLNC-UC. is led by Petr'Antu Tomasi, Ghjuvan-Guidu Talamoni and Josepha Giacometti-Piredda, with the participation of the former FLNC political prisoner Carlu Santoni. The FLNCs are all mostly local to Corsica but also commit attacks on the French mainland.
Corsica Nazione was an electoral group in the Corsican Assembly composed of Corsican nationalist parties. It was led by Jean-Guy Talamoni, who would later become president of the Corsican Assembly in 2015 under the Corsica Libera political party. The group supported the nationalist paramilitaries of the Corsican conflict, and many of the parties in the coalition were political wings of various armed factions.
The Corsicans are a Romance-speaking ethnic group, native to the Mediterranean island of Corsica, a territorial collectivity of France.
Armata Corsa was an underground separatist terrorist organization in Corsica, founded in 1999 and disbanded around 2001.
Léo Battesti is a Corsican chess enthusiast, activist, and retired politician and militant.
Italian irredentism in Corsica was a cultural and historical movement promoted by Italians and by people from Corsica who identified themselves as part of Italy rather than France, and promoted the Italian annexation of the island.
Petru Giovacchini was a Corsican activist, born in Canale-di-Verde to an old family of the Corsican nobility with deep-rooted pro-Italian feelings. Giovacchini was the most renowned of the Corsican Italians, who actively promoted the unification of Corsica to the Kingdom of Italy during the Fascist years.
The Corsican National Alliance was a far-left Corsican Nationalist political party formed in 1989 by Pierre Poggioli, former executive of the Corsican Movement for Self-Determination and a key leader of the National Liberation Front of Corsica. The ANC, for most of its history, was eclipsed by its armed wing, Resistenza.
Fleury-Mérogis Prison is a prison in France, located in the town of Fleury-Mérogis, in the southern suburbs of Paris. With more than 4,100 prisoners, it is the largest prison in Europe. It is operated by the Ministry of Justice.
Corsican nationalism is the concept of a cohesive nation of Corsica and a national identity of its people. The Corsican autonomy movement stems from Corsican nationalism and advocates for further autonomy for the island, if not outright independence from France.
The Corsican conflict is an armed and political conflict on the island of Corsica which began in 1976 between the government of France and Corsican nationalist militant groups, mainly the National Liberation Front of Corsica and factions of the group. Beginning in the 1970s, the Corsican conflict peaked in the 1980s before Corsican nationalist groups and the French government reached a truce with one of the two main splinters of the FLNC, the FLNC-Union of Combattants in June 2014. In 2016, the other main splinter, the FLNC-22nd of October also declared a truce. It is currently ongoing following the 2022 Corsica unrest and the return to arms of the FLNC-UC and FLNC-22U.
Jean-Guy Talamoni is a Corsican politician and Corsican nationalist, who was President of the Corsican Assembly from 17 December 2015 to 1 July 2021. He previously served as leader of the Corsica Nazione electoral group in the Corsican assembly.
The Aleria standoff was a confrontation between members of the French Gendarmerie and Corsican nationalist militants who entrenched themselves in a wine cellar at Aleria, Corsica, on 21 and 22 August 1975. The armed activists belonged to the radical nationalist party Action Régionaliste Corse (ARC). The occupation resulted in a strong reaction of the French government and is regarded as the precursor of the Corsican conflict.
Alain Orsoni is a Corsican politician and former FLNC militant and former president of AC Ajaccio. Founder of the FLNC-Canal Habituel and its political wing, the Movement for Self-Determination, Orsoni led the organization until its dissolution in 1997.
A Cuncolta Naziunalista, often abbreviated to ACN or CN, was a Corsican political party founded in 1987 by members of the National Liberation Front of Corsica to replace their first political wing, Muvimentu Corsu per l’Autodeterminazione, which was banned earlier that year. It was led by Charles Pieri and François Santoni from 1990 until 1998, when the party became A Cuncolta Indipendentista. François Santoni would leave the group three months later to make Presenza Naziunale.
François Durand Séraphin Santoni was a Corsican politician and guerrilla leader serving as the co-leader of the National Liberation Front of Corsica-Canal Historique and one of the two secretary-generals of its political wing, A Cuncolta Naziunalista from 1990 to 1998, when he left both organizations to found his own political party, Presenza Naziunale, and its armed wing, Armata Corsa.
On 17 August 2001, Corsican guerrilla leader and head of the extremist Armata Corsa organisation François Santoni was shot 13 times while attending the marriage of a family friend. The groom, Jean-René Tomasi, was also injured in the attack. The 6 attackers were mostly members of the Brise de Mer mafia, the largest mafia group in Corsica at the time, with the exception of Ange-Marie Orsoni. The attack was done after Santoni began accusing members of the National Liberation Front of Corsica-Canal Historique, an organisation he resigned from co-leading three years before, of conspiring with the mafia. Despite the factors leading up to the incident, the incident has largely been ruled as personal score-settling without a political motivation. The incident was a major event in modern Corsican history, ending the 12-year long period of infighting known as the Years of Lead.
The Tralonca peace campaign was a 10-month period of negotiations and an attempted settlement between the government of France and the National Liberation Front of Corsica-Canal Historique, the largest Corsican paramilitary group at the time. The agreements were meant to bring stability to a then war-ridden Corsica in hopes of an eventual peace with all of the factions present during the period. This was to be achieved through greater autonomy within Corsica, economic growth through the establishment of an economic free zone, and infrastructure developments. The project was spearheaded by French prime minister Alain Juppé and FLNC-CS co-leader François Santoni.
On 16 April 1981, the Ajaccio Napoleon Bonaparte Airport was targeted with two large time bombs placed in the airport terminal in an attempt to assassinate French president Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, who had landed in Corsica for a presidential visit only two minutes before the bombs detonated. Giscard was only 500 yards away at the time of the explosion.
