Yesterday the French parliament passed, as expected and by a comfortable majority, a revolutionary package of laws giving Corsica partial control of its own affairs for the first time since the turbulent Mediterranean island became part of France in 1769. Besides making the teaching of the Corsican language part of every school's curriculum, the new regime will eventually transfer to Corsica's elected island assembly responsibility for a number of areas including culture, regional development, education, agriculture, and infrastructure. But part of the deal will also allow the island's parliament to decide for itself how it applies the so-called lois littoral et montagne , two environmental laws instituted in 1985 and 1986 that oblige property developers to get state approval for any projects affecting sites of particular fragility or outstanding natural beauty. As with most other laws administered from Paris, they were regularly flouted in Corsica, where massive Mafia-style fraud and corruption are commonplace. But what worries environmentalists and many moderate nationalists now, assuming the Corsican devolution project gets past the constitutional council and enters the statute books, is whether the island's elected representatives will be able to resist the developers.
Corsican leaders are confident.
That is wrong. But many others are only too well aware that one of the primary objectives of the whole autonomy project is to allow Corsica to further develop its tourist industry, which while it is currently the most important single element in the island's economy is also severely hampered by a shortage of suitable accommodation. We have an island assembly eager to prove its new-found independence from Paris, local landowners eager at last to make some serious money, and big developers with ready cash eager to build big resorts. It's a recipe for utter disaster. Prime minister Lionel Jospin's devolution project may represent the best chance Corsica has of a return to law and order, an end to the almost daily bombings, machine-gun attacks and other violence that have wracked it for a quarter of a century.