A masked armed group of Corsican separatists has threatened tourists thinking of moving to the island or buying second homes.
The Corsican National Liberation Front-Union of Combatants (FLNC-UC) released a video on Thursday, in which around twelve armed, hooded members stand with submachine-guns and rifles.
In the footage, a man believed to be the group’s leader says in a muffled voice: ‘Until our national rights are recognised and respected, we have only one message for them: stay at home.
‘Otherwise, do not consider yourselves safe on our national territory.’
The FLNC-UC condemned the ‘insane’ flow of 5,000 foreigners who move to the island for work or to buy a second home each year, and said ‘the vast majority of whom are French’.
They deemed it as ‘rampant settlement-driven colonisation’, comparing it to ‘a weapon of mass dilution that colonialism has always used against the peoples it seeks to subjugate, or even wipe out’.
It comes as anti-tourism protests have crippled Spain over recent years.
Corsica grew by 32,900 inhabitants between 2015 and 2025, equivalent to a 1 per cent growth a year, according to the country’s national statistics office INSEE.
The Corsican National Liberation Front-Union of Combatants (FLNC-UC) released a video yesterday in which twelve armed, hooded members stand with submachine-guns and rifles
The FLNC-UC targeted a house in October 2023, part of a series of attacks
The FLNC-UC (pictured) first appeared publicly in 1976 when they claimed responsibility for 18 attacks carried out during a ‘blue night’
Homeowners have included Princess Caroline of Monaco and Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich, as well as celebrities including Mick Jagger and Bill Gates.
The video emerged as FLNC-UC claim that plans to give the Mediterranean island greater autonomy do not go far enough.
The group say the proposed bill is a ‘masquerade’ because it does not properly recognise the Corsican people.
The bill passed through France’s lower house of parliament in June and will go before the Senate from October.
According to the FLNC-UC, the bill ‘leads to the denial of the existence of our people and the repudiation of the main demands of recent decades’.
‘The Corsican people will never be a vulgar administrative community,’ the leader of the group added.
The threat was made during a clandestine press conference attended only by the local news outlet Corse Matin, who were the only media invited.
The FLNC-UC confirmed its goal of ‘national independence’, while adding it will continue to support, through ‘currently unilateral peace efforts’, all routes to a solution that aligns with the wishes of the Corsican people.
The proposals under the bill would recognise Corsica as a distinct historical, linguistic and cultural community.
It would also grant its local assembly greater powers, while keeping Corsica within the French Republic.
The group said it was ‘already in a post-Beauveau era’, referring to talks launched by the French government following violent protests in Corsica in 2022.
The group first appeared publicly in 1976 when they claimed responsibility for 18 attacks carried out during a ‘blue night’.
Police officers and demonstrators clash during a protest against mass tourism and gentrification in the Balearic Islands, in Palma de Mallorca, Spain, on July 26, 2026
Protestors gathered to demonstrate against tourism policies on the island of Tenerife, Spain on April 20, 2024
The term ‘blue night’ is locally used to describe a coordinated series of explosions and bombings carried out over a single night and across various targets.
The movement has fragmented into different groupings since then, caused by internal conflict.
The last ‘blue night’ the group claimed was in October 2023, when 45 explosions targeted second homes and a former tax office in Ajaccio. No injuries were caused.
Francoise Gatel, the minister of decentralisation, in June called the vote behind the Corsica bill ‘an important step for Corsica and for our democracy’.
Last month, more than 25,000 protestors flooded the streets of Mallorca’s capital, Palma, to fight against holidaymakers – with demonstrations turning violent.
Protesters, who were holding signs with slogans including ‘tourists go home’, claimed the holiday hotspot had ‘reached its limit’ fought with officers.
One clip saw a protester being whacked with a baton, before another jumped at a police officer.
Angry protesters were seen leaping over barriers. Police were seen hitting several people in response.
Meanwhile, hundreds of fed-up locals in the Canary Islands took the streets in May 2025 over what they claim is an ‘excessive’ tourism model.
Under the slogan ‘Canarias tiene un limite’ (The Canaries has a limit), the demonstrators gathered on the islands of Tenerife, La Gomera, Gran Canaria, El Hierro, Lanzarote and La Palma.