Nationalists face a crisis in Corsica: As it approaches its 18th birthday, the movement is divided and bickering, writes Julian Nundy in Bastia

AS THE three hooded gunmen arrived to take the 'revolutionary tax' from the Italians with holiday homes on Corsica, another 20 hooded gunmen emerged from the bushes.

'Don't shoot]' shouted one of the three, holding his rifle above his head. 'We're nationalists too]' The other 20 turned out to be gendarmes alerted to a nationalist protection racket on the island. The three, arrested last month, are now in pre-trial detention.

The story is told with some satisfaction by members of the FLNC-Canal Historique, one of the two groups that emerged when the FLNC, or National Liberation Front of Corsica, split in 1990. It is told against members of the other tendency, the FLNC-Canal Habituel, said to have sent the gunmen to extort money from the Italians although it officially condemns the collection of 'revolutionary tax'. The FLNC was banned in 1983 but underground guerrillas keep the organisation's name alive.

If a date were put on the birth of modern Corsican nationalism, it would be 21 August 1975 when 15 armed Corsicans, led by Edmond Simeoni, barricaded themselves inside the property of a wine-grower in Aleria in eastern Corsica.

The Corsicans had two complaints. One was that the vintner, a European resident in Algeria who settled in France after Algerian independence in 1962, was using an illegal amount of sugar to ferment his wine, giving a bad name to the local produce. The other was that, as a returning pied noir, he had benefited from generous credit unavailable to ordinary Corsicans.

The next day, paramilitary gendarmes stormed the building. A Corsican lost a foot in the assault. The drama led to the creation of the FLNC. Dr Simeoni was to become the most prominent of a group of Corsican nationalists to go before the now defunct State Security Court and receive prison terms, all commuted when Francois Mitterrand was first elected President of France in 1981.

As it reaches its 18th birthday this weekend, however, the nationalist movement is in crisis. Divided and bickering, some say it is dangerously adrift, causing serious rifts in a tiny society of 250,000 people and failing to grasp the opportunities offered by nearly two decades of concessions from the centre.

A common criticism is that the main groups are more concerned with scoring points off each other than with helping Corsica. One former FLNC member said various nationalist groups, armed and unarmed, were replacing the earlier family and village clan system traditional to Corsica. A nationalist militant said he feared 'Lebanisation', under which different groups would control different parts of the island.

The crisis came to a head this month when the FLNC-Canal Historique, in a dramatic appearance by five hooded gunmen at an annual conference on Corsican and minority problems, attended by, among others, a Sinn Fein delegation, claimed responsibility for the 15 June assassination of a 28-year-old nationalist, Robert Sozzi. Sozzi is painted by supporters as an idealist, by his foes as a mad bomber who had got out of hand. The claim has prompted fears of a wave of internecine violence.

Leo Battesti, who took part in the Aleria siege when he was 22, received a nine-year jail sentence in 1978. Released in 1981, he decided to defend his beliefs only in public organisations, refusing to become an illegal guerrilla again. Now, he believes, those who are still illegals are a danger to Corsican society and real progress can only be made if they lay down their arms. With Sozzi's assassination, 'the worst has been reached', he said.

Yves Stella, the original FLNC spokesman, received a 15-year sentence in 1978. Now outside the various nationalist groups, he said he believed the hardline militants were missing an historic opportunity to participate in running the island and did not appreciate the real progress made since the mid-1970s. He said the increased use of the Corsican language, environmental protection and the adoption of many nationalist goals by the mainstream political parties on the island showed that the 'primary anti-nationalists' no longer existed.

Such talk was just 'self-flagellation', said a young member of Cuncolta Naziunalista, described as the public face of the FNLC-Canal Historique.

Vincent Stagnara, a lawyer and former president of the Bastia bar, is one of the four national secretaries, the collegial leadership of Cuncolta. He said he did not believe the time had come to change. Corsica was the victim of Paris's rule, 'the worst centralism in the world', and it was not time to lay down arms yet.

Mr Stella professed sympathy for armed struggle. But he said the problem with modern Corsican nationalism was that it had started on a military footing, whereas traditional revolutionary bodies began as political movements with well-defined goals and only took up arms when political methods failed.

One of the mistakes of the original FLNC, he said, was to adopt an anti- French policy, to drive mainland French off the island to create room for Corsicans abroad 'who, we believed, were dreaming of returning. We had an Israeli-style vision.'

Now, the French government, awaiting a development plan from the Corsican Regional Assembly, due to be delivered on 30 September, was telling the island 'to manage things between yourselves', Mr Stella said.

Mr Battesti, who resigned last year from the assembly and from the Movement for Self-Determination, usually considered the political front for the FLNC-Canal Habituel, was less charitable. He said the French government had adopted 'a logic of disdain' and contented itself with 'managing surrealism'.