Demonstrators clashed with police in Ajaccio July 19 during protests over the detention of nine men for involvement in the 1998 murder of a French official in Corsica. As many as 12,000 people attended the rally that was also called to demand a political settlement to the issue of Corsican autonomy. The process is stalled if not blocked, and the Corsican National Liberation Front, a banned group that has been responsible for three decades of attacks against French rule and recently claimed responsibility for several recent attacks on French targets, abandoned its seven-month “truce” with France. The group claimed responsibility for two bombs in the French Riviera resort city of Nice July 20 that targeted the treasury and customs buildings and slightly injured 16. More attacks are feared, but in Corsica they are usually against French businesses or vacant holiday homes at times designed to avoid injuries, so they seldom affect tourists.
