President ends Corsica visit

Press, 16 June 1983, Page 11

President ends Corsica visit

NZPA Bastia, Corsica The French President, Mr Francois Mitterrand, yesterday ended a delicate visit to the troubled island of Corsica, giving a warning that there would be no compromise with separatist violence but pledging support for limited home rule. After two days of touring the rugged Mediterranean island Mr Mitterrand said that it was up to Corsicans to make the most of the home rule statute passed by his Socialist Administration last year. “Be yourselves in a Corsica which is itself, but also fully within the French nation. It would be a false, even mad calculation to imagine that there could be

any other destiny,” he said before returning to Paris. In an earlier speech he sent a tough message to the outlawed Corsican National Liberation Front, which has conducted 300 bombings on the island and mainland this year. “We are capable of containing the violence until it disappears. Let no-one expect the least compromise from us,” he said. The Front declared a truce for Mr Mitterrand’s first visit to Corsica since his election in 1981. Earlier yesterday, in the western port of Calvi, Mr Mitterrand said: “I have found a population which has understood what I have expected of it and which rejects violence.”