Special services and Corsica: a new turning point

The official announcement of the creation of a post at the DGSI devoted to “Corsican separatism” has awakened disturbing echoes in the island.

Corsica has seen, since the second half of the 20th century, a massive establishment of special services. They manifested themselves in particular during the Algerian war, to create in 1958 a putsch for the benefit of the colonialist supporters of French Algeria (operation résurrection).

From the 1970s, these special services were reactivated in the context of anti-autonomist and anti-nationalist attacks, fomented under the aegis of the SAC, the Civic Action Service. They were perpetrated by his local pharmacy, Francia, whose abuses led to the Bastelica-Fesch affair in 1980. Following a parliamentary inquiry led by the first socialist government, this pharmacy and the SAC were dissolved in 1982.

Testimony of a very strong anchoring in Corsica of the special services even under the Mitterrand era, it was on the island that the combat swimmers who distinguished themselves in the attack against the Rainbow Warrior were based . This operation against the Greenpeace environmental ship in Australia in 1985 resulted in one death.

The era of the prefect Bonnet, which began in 1998, saw a resurgence of barbouzarde practices in relation to Corsica. Today, at a time when the special services have also entered the era of communication, accents identical to Barbary prose emerge in the announcement of the creation of a post at the DGSI devoted to the counter- terrorism in Corsica. This information suggests, for many observers, a worrying tomorrow.