The FLNC-Canal Historique (; abbreviated FLNC-CS) was an armed paramilitary and guerrilla organization created in 1990 from a split within the command structure of the original FLNC. The organization was made of a radically militant base, rejecting the idea of ceasefire with the French government. During Corsica's “Years of Lead”, a violent period of intense guerrilla warfare and infighting in the 1990s, the FLNC-CS was particularly active, engaging in intense conflict with both French authorities as well as with other nationalist organizations, most notably fighting a war with Alain Orsoni’s FLNC-Canal Habituel (Canale Abituale, FLNC-CA). In 1999, The FLNC-CS became one of the founding members of the FLNC-Union of Combatants, a guerrilla organization which remains active today following the end of a nine-year long ceasefire.
The FLNC-CS formed after a two-year long dissident campaign within the FLNC, during which brigade leaders and other divisions of the FLNC began to separate due to their views of the 1988 ceasefire as “illegitimate”. On 25 November 1990, the town of Borgo was invaded, and in the same day during the occupation the dissident militants declared the creation of the “Historic Channel” (Corsican: Canale Storicu; French: Canal Historique) of the FLNC. One month earlier, the “Habituel Channel” (FLNC-Canale Abituale, FLNC-CA) was formed out of the dissolution of the brigade council and Alain Orsoni’s seizure of power. These two groups engaged in a drawn out civil war until the dissolution of the FLNC-CA in 1996. That same year, the FLNC-CS would begin to lose footing to Fronte Ribellu, a splinter group of the organisation, and the FLNC-5 May (FLNC-5 Maghju, FLNC-5M), a split of the FLNC-CA. In 1999, the FLNC-CS southern division leader François Santoni split from the organization to form Armata Corsa, a hyper-militant terrorist organization that carried out a large number of assassinations and attacks on the FLNC-CS and other guerrillas as well as French authorities. On 23 December 1999, the FLNC-CS, Fronte Ribellu, the FLNC-5M, and a small organization called Clandestinu formed the FLNC-Union of Combatants to better organize against both Armata Corsa and pursue a failed peace with the French government. History
Background The National Liberation Front of Corsica (FLNC) formed on 5 May 1976. From then on, the group engaged in a prolonged guerrilla war against French authorities on the island of Corsica. The FLNC was quite popular amongst the people of Corsica, and for the most part internal divisions were rare in the first few years of the conflict.
The first divisions began to appear within the FLNC following 1979. A surge of popular support resulting from local influence and the militaristic and oppresive response of French authorities to the conflict, such as their response to the Bastelica-Fesch affair, caused many Corsicans to rally around the FLNC and join the organization in droves.Loughlin, John. Regionalism and Ethnic Nationalism in France: a Case Study of Corsica. This, coupled with arrests of high-ranking officials, caused the FLNC to adopt a new system of leadership in which two governing bodies, the political cunsigliu (council) and the military ghjunta (junta) governed in tandem.
This system was initially successful, but its problems became evident during the 1981-1982 Defferre accords. The cunsigliu wanted to pursue peace and work alongside the French government for Corsican autonomy, whereas the ghjunta wanted to continue using armed struggle as the primary tool for Corsican independence, avoiding any negotiation with the French state or any political participation in general. Borgo-Lucciana brigade leader and ghjunta member Charles Pieri gained a following within the FLNC for his statements against the Defferre accords, and in 1982 Pieri carried out an assault on a Foreign Legion outpost in Sorbo-Ocagnano, breaking the ceasefire the FLNC set for the duration of the Defferre accords.
In 1983, the FLNC's central command (made up of the cunsigliu and ghjunta) narrowly passed a motion creating a so-called "revolutionary tax" system. Businesses in areas occupied by the FLNC were made to pay a given amount of money to the organisation, and business elsewhere, especially owned by Frenchmen, were at risk of being extorted by the group for money in exchange for keeping their business. This was controversial, and many members of the FLNC, especially those affiliated with the cunsigliu, viewed this as immoral. A major point of debate regarding the revolutionary tax was how much of it was going back to the FLNC.Members of the ghjunta, who led the FLNC's brigades, were accused of extorting businesses and not diverting the money to the FLNC's command. This accusation was common amongst the urban brigades of the FLNC, mainly François Santoni's Gravona brigade, centred around the suburbs of northeastern Ajaccio, and Charles Pieri's Borgo-Lucciana brigade, operating in Bastia's southern suburbs. These accusations gained a large amount of attention following the 1983 Schock affair, in which Gravona brigade members assassinated a barber who refused to pay a tax imposed on him by the brigade. An internal FLNC investigation revealed this money was going to Santoni rather than the FLNC itself. Many moved to punish Santoni, but Pieri and other radical members came to his defense, and due to the two-branch system, nothing could be done to punish him.https://www.liberation.fr/evenement/1996/12/19/de-l-impot-revolutionnaire-au-racket-mafieux_190543/
After the Schock affair, the distance between the consigliu and the ghjunta gradually worsened, and by 1987 they had begun to refuse cooperation. The cunsigliu, headed at this time by cunsigliu president Pierre Poggioli, began organizing a joint congress to hash out issues between the brigade leaders in the ghjunta and deputies in the cunsigliu. Instrumental in this process was Alain Orsoni, who was a cunsigliu member representing the Ajaccio region. The first congress was held in the Gravona area of Ajaccio region and dealt with the controversial issue of centralization and autonomy. Gravona was likely chosen due to the Gravona brigade leader, François Santoni, being an ardent autonomist who had disobeyed central committee orders many times, most notably when he ordered his brigade to carry out the attempted assassination of Valéry Giscard d’Estaing in 1981.
FLNC split and foundation On 8 May 1988, François Mitterrand was re-elected to his position as president of France. One of Mitterrand's goals in his first term was peace in Corsica, and despite temporarily abandoning this policy following the FLNC's withdrawal from the Defferre process and the escalation of violence following it, Mitterrand was open to further discussions on Corsican autonomy. On the night of Mitterrand's re-election, the FLNC called a ceasefire to attempt to facilitate negotiations with the newly re-elected government. This was a highly controversial decision within the FLNC, and by mid-1989 several high-ranking officials, mostly from the ghjunta, including Jean-Michel Rossi, François Santoni, Charles Pieri, and Pierre Alessandri, withdrew their brigades from the FLNC. Further dissident splits followed, including an insurrectionary movement in Ajaccio led by Roger Polverelli. The followers of the anti-ceasefire movement earned the name “Historiques” (Storichi in Corsican) due to their strong attachment to the hardline militant ideals of the original FLNC, and a dissident campaign was carried out by these brigades against the remaining FLNC structure from 1988 to 1990.
Pierre Poggioli, leader of the FLNC's joint congress, resigned from the organisation on 16 September 1989 due to the harsh divisions and the so-called "internal war" causing the groups collapse. On paper, this left the FLNC with no proper leader, but many in the cunsigliu began to rally around Alain Orsoni, who had become the group's political leader and ran A Cuncolta Naziunalista, the FLNC's political wing created following the dissolution of the Corsican Movement for Self-Determination. Poggioli would create his own party, the Corsican National Alliance, and armed group, Resistenza, in 1990. Resistenza aligned itself with the FLNC-Canal Historique until 1993.
In August 1990, A Cuncolta Naziunalista sufferred from numerous controversial splits, as the leadership centred around Orsoni struggled to keep the Historiques remaining in the party from going against their word. This resulted in Orsoni's ousting by Pieri and Santoni, who became joint leaders of the organisation, with Pieri acting as secretary-general in Haute-Corse and Santoni acting as secretary-general of Corse-du-Sud. In October of that same year, Orsoni took control of the FLNC central command, dissolved it, and re-organised it into the FLNC-Canal Habituel (Canale Abituale, FLNC-CA). This was coupled with the creation of the Movement for Self-Determination (Muvimentu per l'Autodeterminazione, MPA), Orsoni's new political party.
On 25 November 1990, representatives from the dissident Historique brigades sent armed men to the town of Borgo, 20 kilometres south of the city of Bastia, and occupied it. There, they delivered the so-called "Borgo Declaration", where they announced the creation of the FLNC-Canal Historique (FLNC-CS) via the unification of the various dissident brigades. This was coupled with a statement denouncing the FLNC-Canal Habituel. At the same time, Santoni was also publicly making unverifiable accusations that Orsoni had embezzled large amounts of money during his time as leader of A Cuncolta Naziunalista.
The creation of the FLNC-CS was met with immediate scrutiny from the French government, with interior minister Pierre Joxe giving a public speech in which he advised Corsicans to "isolate the terrorists who kill and destroy" while "uniting those who build and sustain Corsica". Joxe had secured the support of the remainder of the FLNC (now the FLNC-CA) for his main political project, the Joxe agreements, which were undergoing debate in the National Assembly at the time. Pierre Mauroy, former prime minister, spoke in the National Assembly two days after the creation of the FLNC-CS and warned of "the consequence of abandoning" the Joxe agreements, fearful it would further radicalise Corsican nationalists. He also alluded to the dangers of the violent anti-separatism of the right in the French government, spearheaded at that time by Jean-Pierre Chevènement.
Early years The 1990s saw a wave of bombings, ambushes, raids, assassinations, and other forms of guerrilla warfare targeted at both the FLNC-CS, FLNC-CA, and France. Corsican nationalists frequently feuded and split, causing large amounts of violence within the movement and warfare between the various groups. This earned the era the name “Years of Lead”, much like the one in nearby Italy. This period would last until the Migliacciaru accords were signed in 1999.
The first hostilities between the FLNC-CS and the FLNC-CA occurred on 29 November, just four days after the creation of the FLNC-CS. Habituels stormed the headquarters of U Ribombu, the press organ of the FLNC-CS, and stole the technical equipment from the building. The Habituels left a large-calibre bullet on the table in the printing room to represent a threat against the Historiques. The equipment they stole was used to print A Paese, their own newspaper. This kickstarted a chain of assassinations and tit-for-tat attacks by Habituels and Historiques.