History History

The first alignments of monoliths and large dolmens appear, this is the beginning of monumental statuary. The whole territory is occupied, both the coasts and the mountainous areas of the interior, but the peoples are divided into small scattered groups.

Corsica enters Protohistory. The culture of torre and castelli develops with the Torréens. The first armed menhir statues appear.

It is the Corsican Iron Age, also characterized by the sedentary nature of the populations. Agriculture develops. We can see interpenetrations between Corsica and Northern Italy. The Phoenicians begin to mix with the Corsican populations.

Arrival of the Greeks from Phocée in Corsica and foundation of Alalia (now Aleria) on the east coast. It remained the economic capital of the island for two centuries with successively the Etruscans, the Carthaginians, the Phoenicians then the Romans.

The Syracusans take a foothold at Portus Syracusanus in the bay of Porto-Vecchio.

The first Punic war, between Rome and Carthage, precipitated the destiny of Corsica while Rome decided to invade.

The defeat of Carthage then the conquest of Gaul and the advent of Cicero in Rome sounded the hour of a durable colonization of Corsica. Under Julius Caesar the colonists from Italy, Provence and the East settled on the territory. Industrial activities, trade, arts and crafts flourished.

The Civil War in Rome in 340 followed by the fall of the Western Empire in 364, contributed to the collapse of the economy. The Empire collapsed, Corsica passed into the hands of the Church which had interfered with the population from the beginning of the Christian era. As the only economic and social power able to protect the island from barbarian invasions, it seized the Roman heritage.

The first Moors landed in Corsica in 713, under the pressure of Islamic conquests.

After the death of Pépin le Bref in 768, Corsica was almost unprotected. The power on the spot, shared between local notables, marquis of Tuscany and bishops, was insufficient to fight against the Saracen or barbarian raids which raged for two centuries (looting, slavery, etc.)

A division of Corsica takes place to put an end to these fatal struggles. Pisa keeps the bishoprics of Ajaccio, Aléria and Sagone, Genoa receives those of Mariana and Nebbio (Saint-Florent).

The renewed conflict between Rome and the Empire in the 12th century fuelled the rivalry between Pisa and Genoa. It is the beginning of the Pisan domination: the monks settle down, the Romanesque monasteries - of which there are still vestiges today - rise. But the resumption of the conflict between Rome and the Empire stirs up the rivalry between Pisa and Genoa. It was at this time that the local lordships, powerful families with a developed feudal clientele, emerged and tried to achieve conciliation with Genoa.

Pisa's defeat at Meloria allowed its rival to establish its domination, sealed by the peace of 1299.

The Genoese face several popular revolts, which put the island to fire and blood.

King Alfonso of Aragon undertakes the siege of Bonifacio and then Calvi, in vain.

The municipality of Genoa places the administration of the island under the supervision of the Bank of St. George. The bankers carry out in Corsica a great work of défense (citadels, towers, forts, bastions). Once the Bank is installed, Corsica tries to free itself from this Italian tutelage.

During the 16th century, the hero of free Corsica, Sampiero Corso, decided to drive the Genoese out of the territory. With the help of the king of France Charles VIII and then Louis XII, he managed to do so.

But at his advent, King Henry II came back on this decision : Corsica was forced to give up its independence claims. We are also witnessing the agony of feudalism, the emergence of local notables, the rise of the power of the cities.

The Corsican uprising against Genoa resumes for forty years. A series of political events put the island at the heart of European power stakes, involving Genoese, French and Spanish on one side, English, Austrians and Sardinians on the other.

Pascal (or Pasquale) Paoli, Democrat, goes to the Assembly to lead the insurrection for the independence of Corsica. He is elected general-in-chief of the Corsican Nation. He is the first to give the right to vote to women, to create a university, to mint coins, etc.

Finally, the Corsican affair ended in a French military conquest. On 13 June, Paoli gave up the fight and embarked for Porto-Vecchio. From then on, Corsica lost its independence and the citizens of its democracy became subjects of Louis XV.

On August 15, Napoleon Bonaparte was born in Ajaccio. At the age of 9, Napoleon left the island and was admitted to the military school of Brienne-le-Château. At the age of 23, he was elected lieutenant-colonel of the Corsican National Guard. The disagreements between Paoli and Bonaparte became more pronounced and in 1793, Napoleon had to leave the island, bound for mainland France. Three years later, he married Josephine de Beauharnais and became general-in-chief of the Italian army. After his triumphant return from the Egyptian campaign in 1799, Bonaparte became First Consul. With the broad powers granted to him by the new Constitution (which he had created for himself), he undertook the reorganization of the country: 1800, creation of the prefectural corps and the Bank of France; 1801, Concordat; 1802, Legion of Honor; 1803, Franc Germinal; 1804, Civil Code. Napoleon was proclaimed emperor of the French under the name of Napoleon^I, and was crowned by Pope Pius VII in 1804 in the cathedral of Notre-Dame de Paris. Napoleon endowed France with solid institutions: the creation of the University, the Industrial Tribunals (1806), the Court of Auditors (1807). Under his impulse, roads, bridges and canals were created. The whole of Europe then formed a new coalition which put a definitive end to his career. Following the defeat of his army at Waterloo on June 18, 1815, he abdicated on June 22, was exiled to St. Helena where he died on May 5, 1821. At the request of King Louis-Philippe, the Emperor's ashes were returned to France in 1840 and deposited in the Invalides.

After a twenty-year exile, Paoli joined the French Revolution. Recalled in 1790 to his homeland, which had become a French department, he was triumphantly welcomed by the population and elected president of the departmental board.

On September 11, he was promoted to the rank of lieutenant-general. During the Revolution, Corsica did not take an active part in the events. It was in turmoil, as in many French provinces, but nothing notable.

The Crocetta uprising, an almost general uprising that led to several battles, at the end of which the Corsicans were defeated.

Jacques-Pierre Charles Abbatucci was appointed senator and official adviser to Napoleon III, who entrusted him with the affairs of Corsica. In this capacity, he was at the origin of several works to modernize the island during the Second Empire (creation of more than 2,000 km of roads, installation of the telegraph and the first maritime postal mail, development of the ports of Bastia and Ajaccio, creation of the teacher training college, opening of a Caisse d'Epargne in Ajaccio, construction of the law courts of Bastia and Ajaccio, etc.)

Land of Italian exiles and Bonapartists, Corsica remained agitated throughout the 19th century by independence movements. The fall of Napoleon III led to the Corsican people rejecting once again its belonging to France.

When the First World War broke out, Corsica was preparing to pay a heavy price for its membership of the Republic. The human toll of the war was terrible, and the Spanish flu of 1918 worsened the situation. Everything was in short supply, from foodstuffs to raw materials and energy sources.

The francization policy of the years 1920-1939 claimed to reduce, even prohibit the use of the Corsican language. It was the time of banditry and of independentists insurgent for honour (Romanetti, François Caviglioli, Joseph Bartoli, André Spada). A psychosis settles down, the population being sometimes terrorized, sometimes accomplice.

The French government sent an army of tanks to the coast, a violent action of "cleaning the maquis" which was severely judged by the Corsican people.

The Second World War broke out, it put Corsica back at the centre of the international stakes: Mussolini's Italy suggested that the island was part of its vital space.

Corsica was placed in the free zone and Corsican opinion followed continental opinion. François Pietri became a member of the Vichy government, while others listened to "Radio Londres". Pétain's weakness and that of his government did not guarantee Corsica's annexation by Italy, so he was less and less trusted.

The Italians occupied Corsica when the Allies landed in North Africa and the Germans invaded the Free Zone.

On September 9th, the Corsican people rose up and libère  : it was the first French department to be liberated, well before Normandie !

In Ajaccio, the "National Front" took power and appointed a Prefecture Council, but this did not liberate the entire territory. When the armistice with Italy was signed on September 8, 1944, Colonna d'Istria ordered a general uprising. Operation Vesuvius was successful on October 3, opening the door to political success.

Gaullists and communists of the "Front" oppose each other for the political domination of the island. In the elections of 1945, "Front " won 189 municipalities. Erased from the political scene the following year, the Gaullists left it up to the radical-socialists to block the way to the communists.

From 1957 and even more following Algeria's independence in 1962, 15,000 to 20,000 repatriates from North Africa settled in Corsica and were received with varying degrees of enthusiasm. Inspired by the Algerian movement, independence was to be reborn in 1958.

In Paris, the "Union Corse" is created.

While in 1968  an effervescence crosses France and the world, it is the same in Corsica. The plasticisations multiply while the demonstrations become violent.

Jacques Chaban-Delmas places Corsica under the status of economic region. This is not enough to calm the spirits, the struggle now has a but  : autonomy.

On 21 August, a commando of twenty men, led by Edmond Simeoni, occupies the cellar of a returnee in Aléria. Two soldiers are killed and Simeoni is taken prisoner at the end of a lightning assault. Riots break out in Bastia. Paris tries to calm things down with economic measures, in vain.

The FLNC (National Liberation Front of Corsica) took over from the RCAF, criticising its overly conciliatory methods.

The independentists enter the Assembly of Corsica. The uneasiness grows, at all levels and for a long time.

The crisis broke out with the assassination of Prefect Erignac by the clandestine Sampieru movement. Demonstrations against violence follow in Ajaccio and Bastia. The political climate was marked by recurrent attacks until the early 2000s.

An effort of renewal and appeasement has been noticeable for about twenty years, the independence and autonomist desires go more through the democratic way, which should not however overshadow the complexity of the "Corsican case" and the frustrations still present. Since 17 December 2015, the autonomist Gilles Siméoni has been President of the Executive Council of Corsica.