Corsican flag. Wikimedia/public domain.
The rise of the armed struggle
On the night of 22 August 1975, a group of some twenty men, headed by the Action Régionale Corse (ARC) leader, Edmond Siméoni, occupied a pied noir’s vineyard in Aléria on the eastern coast of Corsica. The occupation of the vineyard aimed to condemn the alleged financial corruption of its owner, Henri Depeille, who – like many other pieds noirs (French settlers in Algeria) – had benefited from the French state’s extensive land redistribution after Algeria’s independence. The government had also favoured pied noirs in its distribution of land subsidies, further marginalising Corsican farmers. The occupation was inflamed by the deployment over the following days of armoured cars, helicopters and twelve hundred men from the Compagnie Républicaine de Sécurité (CRS), the state security police forces.
The ensuing confrontation resulted in the death of two CRS men and the serious wounding of a member of the ARC. Soon after, the ARC was disbanded and Simeoni was sentenced to five years in prison. These events would be the catalyst for 40 years of conflict, most notably between the Front de Libération Nationale Corse (FLNC) and the French state.
