Why are Corsicans protesting against the French government?

The French government has said it is ready to discuss “autonomy” for Corsica, an unprecedented step-down by Paris over a long-standing demand of the Mediterranean island, which was rocked by violent protests last weekend.

“We are ready to go as far as autonomy—there you go, the word has been said,” French Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin told the regional newspaper Corse Matin, ahead of his two-day visit to the island on Wednesday. 

With an estimated population of 330,000, the island is famous as the birthplace of Napoleon Bonaparte and is closer to Italy than mainland France.

The French Interior Minister’s comments also come less than a month before the presidential elections in the Eurozone's second-biggest economy.

"I note that many presidential candidates are in favour of an institutional evolution for Corsica," Darmanin said.

However, he added that the exact nature of autonomy was yet to be decided. "We need to talk about this; it will take time," the paper quoted.

The French government was forced to act quickly and pacify the island after the brutal assault on prominent Corsican nationalist Yvan Colonna in prison sparked mass protests, which left more than 100 people injured. The protesters also targeted public buildings and police with homemade explosive devices. The prison attack left Colonna in a coma.

Some 10,000 people, including school children as young as 12, marched on Sunday in Bastia, the northern town of the island, answering calls by nationalists for the immediate release of political prisoners and more autonomy for the island.

The island’s resistance icon Colonna was being held in prison on the mainland due to his “special status.”

The French authorities have rejected repeated calls for his transfer to the island from the French mainland, citing inadequate security safeguards in the island’s only prison.

“If he had been transferred, the attack would not have happened,” 24-year-old Pierre-Joseph Paganelli, president of the nationalist student union Cunsulta di a Ghjuventu Corsa (CGC) told RFI, a French radio station. 

Colonna was beaten and strangled by another prisoner for more than eight minutes in the prison’s gym, which was supposed to provide sufficient surveillance for security.

 “How could they be alone together for so long, and how could such an act have happened without prison guards intervening?” Paganelli asked, echoing the sentiments of many Corsicans.

Colonna, a shepherd considered a hero by most Corsicans, is serving a life sentence for the 1998 murder of Claude Erignac, who, as prefect of Corsica, embodied the power of the French state on the island.

The assassination of Erignac started the biggest manhunt in French history, and Colonna was thought to have left the country.

However, he was arrested in 2003 in the mountains of Corsica, having eluded capture for 1,503 days.

What do the protesters demand? 

Corsican nationalists have long been calling for more control over local matters such as economic policy, taxation, education and healthcare.

“There is no real autonomy without fiscal autonomy,” pro-autonomy regional council president Gilles Simeoni told France Info radio.

“What we want…is to build a Corsican society that is emancipated, democratic, responsible, with a renewed strong link with the state and the Republic,” he added.

The use of the Corsican language is another major issue for the people living on the island, as they would be able to decide how they teach and disseminate their local language.

Meanwhile, as tensions rise, the National Liberation Front of Corsica (FLNC), which had carried out deadly attacks since the 1970s before laying down its arms in 2014, warned on Wednesday that it could resume fighting if the government remained in a state of "contemptuous denial" of Corsican demands.