“An inappropriate anti-colonialist reading”

How did we go, in the 1960s, from “ pride in being French » has “ the pride of Corsican specificity » ?

After the Second World War, the French mirror shattered for many Corsicans. The loss of Algeria led to disillusionment and the ensuing repatriation of the pieds-noirs confirmed a feeling of injustice. 17,000 returnees settled in Corsica in a few years with advantageous conditions of access to land, particularly in the eastern plain, unfortunately sometimes to the detriment of Corsican farmers who are experiencing a very difficult economic situation. This policy created strong resentment in the rural world and it is no coincidence that, in 1973, the first nationalist movement was the Corsican Peasant Liberation Front.

Where does the current Francophobia of part of the youth come from?

It is partly due to the way in which nationalists, of all tendencies, have attached the status of “victim” of France to the Corsican people.

During the 1970s and 1980s, drawing inspiration in particular from the Third Worldist ideology of the Algerian FLN, these political groups grafted an inappropriate anti-colonialist reading onto the history of Corsica. The status of the natives who enjoyed the rights of French citizenship was obviously not comparable to that of colonized peoples.

What place does Pascal Paoli (1725-1807) occupy in Corsican memory?

“U Babbu di a Patria” (The Father of the Fatherland) is a consensual character in Corsica. Whatever their political sensitivity, the Corsicans recognize its importance, its legitimacy.

But a strong divide exists on the interpretation of his fight. After being defeated by French troops in 1769, Paoli adhered in 1789 to the request of Corsican deputies to the National Assembly for the island to be governed by the same Constitution as the entire French territory.

He writes: “Union with the free French nation is not servitude but participation by right. » Pascal Paoli was not the enemy of France.