WEBVTT - The Uprising in Corsica 0:00:05.200 --> 0:00:08.680 Ah, welcome to it could happen here the podcast where 0:00:09.240 --> 0:00:12.559 this Today I sit down with my buddy Jake Hanrahan 0:00:12.720 --> 0:00:17.720 and we talk about Corsica. Jake, how's the showy? How 0:00:17.760 --> 0:00:20.000 you how you feeling? Yeah, I'm all right, thank so. 0:00:20.040 --> 0:00:21.960 I've got a bit of a flu, but otherwise everything's 0:00:21.960 --> 0:00:26.239 really good. One. Yeah, um, we you just took a 0:00:26.280 --> 0:00:31.280 little reporting trip um down to the island of Corsica Um, 0:00:31.320 --> 0:00:32.879 which is not a place I know much about, and 0:00:32.880 --> 0:00:34.279 I'm going to guess not a place most of our 0:00:34.320 --> 0:00:36.239 listeners not much about. So why don't you Why don't 0:00:36.240 --> 0:00:38.000 you start with kind of like what what brought you 0:00:38.040 --> 0:00:41.600 down there? Yeah? No, it's a really good point. A 0:00:41.600 --> 0:00:43.760 lot of people don't even know it exists. I sent 0:00:43.880 --> 0:00:46.880 the documentary made Um with Popular Front to a friend 0:00:46.920 --> 0:00:49.599 of mine today and he said, brother, us the first 0:00:49.640 --> 0:00:52.560 time I've ever heard of Corsica Like a lot of 0:00:52.560 --> 0:00:56.840 people don't know. Boy. It's so it's a very old island, um. 0:00:56.880 --> 0:00:59.440 You know, more than two hundred years people have inhabited 0:00:59.640 --> 0:01:01.840 the plays, but generally for the last kind of two 0:01:01.880 --> 0:01:07.080 hundred years there's been an on again, off again independence movement. 0:01:07.160 --> 0:01:10.319 They're people that don't want to be under the control 0:01:10.360 --> 0:01:13.160 of France or whoever. They want control of their own island. 0:01:13.160 --> 0:01:18.000 Because Corsican is quite a specific culture. Um, it's very 0:01:18.000 --> 0:01:21.320 different to French culture, it's different to Italian culture. They 0:01:21.360 --> 0:01:25.080 even have their own language called Course. Unfortunately, it's kind 0:01:25.080 --> 0:01:27.319 of dying out, as you know, a lot of languages 0:01:27.360 --> 0:01:32.200 do in kind of contested areas if you like. Um. 0:01:32.240 --> 0:01:34.560 But yeah, so so they've always kind of wanted to 0:01:34.640 --> 0:01:37.919 be independent in some way. Not everybody, not the whole place. 0:01:37.959 --> 0:01:39.920 I'm sure you'll find some course Becans that will say 0:01:39.920 --> 0:01:43.880 their course and Confrench, but generally the majority of people 0:01:43.920 --> 0:01:45.880 if you go there and say, well are you they'll 0:01:45.959 --> 0:01:49.520 tell you with Corsican, we're not French with Corsican. So 0:01:49.600 --> 0:01:54.080 in the nineties seventies, that kind of coalesced was rebirthed, 0:01:54.120 --> 0:01:56.960 if you like, with the backdrop of you know, guns, 0:01:57.120 --> 0:02:00.600 bombs and independence movements of course Europe and a group 0:02:00.640 --> 0:02:05.720 called the f l n C formed the Nationalist Liberation 0:02:05.840 --> 0:02:10.600 Front for Corsica and they arrived with twenty one bombs 0:02:10.600 --> 0:02:12.840 on the island in one night. I mean not arrived, 0:02:12.880 --> 0:02:15.840 you know, they were already there, of course, but they 0:02:16.440 --> 0:02:20.920 bombed twenty one times in one night, mostly French infrastructure, 0:02:21.480 --> 0:02:24.080 and they were all very very well armed. There was 0:02:24.160 --> 0:02:27.560 literally hundreds of members and at one point I have 0:02:27.680 --> 0:02:30.480 to I don't want to say this because it's been 0:02:30.480 --> 0:02:32.799 a while since I looked at the research, but if 0:02:32.840 --> 0:02:34.919 I'm right, at one point in the in the late 0:02:34.960 --> 0:02:39.000 seventies or early eighties, the Effllency was actually the most 0:02:39.120 --> 0:02:43.360 active militant or terrorist group in the whole of Europe, 0:02:43.560 --> 0:02:47.600 even even more active than the Provisional IRA. Now Provisional 0:02:47.639 --> 0:02:50.120 IRA called a lot more people the f l n C. 0:02:50.760 --> 0:02:52.880 Their targets weren't really to kill people. They were to 0:02:52.919 --> 0:02:55.920 blow up holiday homes and blow up French infrastructure. They 0:02:55.960 --> 0:02:59.200 didn't have open gun battles, and they did assassinate the 0:02:59.200 --> 0:03:04.440 the highest ranking French officer on Corsica on the island eventually. 0:03:04.880 --> 0:03:06.960 But yeah, so so there was this real backdrop of 0:03:07.200 --> 0:03:12.000 very militant um independence. When I say nationalists, it's not 0:03:12.720 --> 0:03:16.160 it's not what we might associate with like far right nationalists. 0:03:16.200 --> 0:03:20.239 You know, when an independent movement doesn't have its own country, 0:03:20.280 --> 0:03:22.840 you know, the ultra nationalism in their sense comes out 0:03:22.840 --> 0:03:25.240 in a very different way. It's not we want to 0:03:25.240 --> 0:03:28.520 ban everybody else from here. It's simply we want our country, 0:03:28.600 --> 0:03:30.920 you know what I mean. So when I say ultra nationalists, 0:03:30.960 --> 0:03:34.120 that's not to be confused with fascist ultra nationalist. It's 0:03:34.200 --> 0:03:37.640 very different. Not to say that couskins all believe in 0:03:37.640 --> 0:03:40.760 in leftist causes and that that wouldn't be true. A 0:03:40.800 --> 0:03:43.680 lot of them do. There's a big socialist element to 0:03:43.680 --> 0:03:46.040 to the cause, and there's also quite a right wing 0:03:46.040 --> 0:03:48.480 element to the cause, but ultimately they all kind of 0:03:48.480 --> 0:03:51.960 want the same thing, autonomy or independence of Corsica. So yeah, 0:03:51.960 --> 0:03:54.640 So that that's the kind of history very briefly of 0:03:54.800 --> 0:03:59.520 militant independence movements in Corsica. FLNC put down their guns 0:04:00.160 --> 0:04:05.160 and recently one of the fln C was suspected FLNC 0:04:05.360 --> 0:04:09.080 militants who shot this this high ranking French official that 0:04:09.120 --> 0:04:12.320 I told you about. Um this this guy is called 0:04:12.320 --> 0:04:16.560 Evan Colina. He was arrested after the shooting in the 0:04:16.640 --> 0:04:19.640 nineties and sent to a French prison for life. And 0:04:19.720 --> 0:04:22.240 on March the sixth, I believe it was, he was 0:04:22.800 --> 0:04:25.479 no very much. Second, he was attacked in a French 0:04:25.520 --> 0:04:28.640 prison by a Jahadics inmate and beaten into a coma. 0:04:29.200 --> 0:04:32.440 Yesterday or two days ago now he died of his injuries. 0:04:32.920 --> 0:04:35.279 Ever since he was beaten into this comma, the youth 0:04:35.360 --> 0:04:37.520 would just kind of lit the place on fight. You know, 0:04:37.560 --> 0:04:41.280 they were really clashing very violently. And for for the 0:04:41.360 --> 0:04:43.440 last kind of seven years since there was as a 0:04:43.480 --> 0:04:45.720 was a relative calm on the island in terms of 0:04:45.760 --> 0:04:50.200 political activism and militancy, the politicians, the more moderate parties 0:04:50.200 --> 0:04:52.440 have tried to do this politically and for the first 0:04:52.440 --> 0:04:55.200 time in a while, the youth have gone, not fuck it, 0:04:55.279 --> 0:04:57.640 We're not playing that anymore. We're we're going to knock 0:04:57.680 --> 0:04:59.360 the place about. We're going to smash the shop up. 0:04:59.760 --> 0:05:03.000 And basically it's kind of worked, which we can go into. 0:05:03.040 --> 0:05:04.839 But yeah, so sorry to go on a lot, but 0:05:04.880 --> 0:05:06.520 there's quite a lot to it because obviously, like you said, 0:05:06.520 --> 0:05:08.720 a lot of people don't know. But one thing I 0:05:08.760 --> 0:05:11.400 always say is Corsica is just one of the most 0:05:11.440 --> 0:05:15.159 beautiful places anybody will go to. Like objectively, it's idyllic. 0:05:15.640 --> 0:05:19.480 It's not really had this horrible holiday home vibe there 0:05:19.520 --> 0:05:23.839 because genuinely, when when some contractors tried to kind of 0:05:23.920 --> 0:05:26.640 gentrify a course to come and turn it into the 0:05:26.720 --> 0:05:28.760 next ib through I believe one of the quotes was 0:05:28.800 --> 0:05:32.000 from one of the people doing this. The f l 0:05:32.080 --> 0:05:34.200 n C kind of waited for them to build their 0:05:34.240 --> 0:05:36.680 homes and then blew them all up and blew up 0:05:36.680 --> 0:05:39.760 all their hotels. So it was like they're like, you're 0:05:39.800 --> 0:05:41.760 not going to do that here. A lot of these 0:05:41.760 --> 0:05:45.000 companies were infringing on the environment, which is beautiful there. 0:05:45.000 --> 0:05:47.440 And yeah, so there's a lot more to it, but generally, 0:05:47.560 --> 0:05:53.400 you know, this all kind of revolves around militant independence. Yeah, 0:05:53.440 --> 0:05:56.760 that's interesting. I mean, I think it's fascinating the idea 0:05:56.880 --> 0:05:59.760 of targeting, like the degree to which a lot of 0:05:59.800 --> 0:06:02.000 this seems to be focused on stopping this place from 0:06:02.040 --> 0:06:06.240 turning into another vacation destination, or like rich people's second 0:06:06.240 --> 0:06:10.719 homes push out the population that's born there. Um. I 0:06:10.760 --> 0:06:15.640 think there's a lot of places that, like organizer complaining 0:06:15.680 --> 0:06:17.880 about that sort of thing. Um, But I'm not aware 0:06:17.880 --> 0:06:20.440 of anyone who's gone to these kind of lengths to 0:06:20.520 --> 0:06:24.560 stab themselves from turning into another a visa. Yeah. Yeah, 0:06:24.640 --> 0:06:28.520 And honestly, if you go to Corsica and see how 0:06:28.560 --> 0:06:30.240 beautiful it is, not just I mean, it's one of 0:06:30.240 --> 0:06:31.800 the few places in Europe where you can see the 0:06:31.839 --> 0:06:34.920 mountains from the beach. You know, it's incredible island. I've 0:06:34.920 --> 0:06:36.760 been obsessed with this place since I was about twenty 0:06:36.800 --> 0:06:39.560 four years old. Firstly from the nature and the beauty there, 0:06:39.600 --> 0:06:42.680 but secondly I was very interested in the militant group there, 0:06:43.480 --> 0:06:47.000 um because the culture there is so different. But yeah, 0:06:47.040 --> 0:06:48.520 if you look at the place, you go there and 0:06:48.520 --> 0:06:52.200 you realize, like, right, this place is very much worth preserving. 0:06:52.560 --> 0:06:55.120 I don't want to act like there hasn't been businesses 0:06:55.160 --> 0:06:57.919 doing their thing there. There definitely is, but certainly it 0:06:57.960 --> 0:07:00.960 feels preserved. There's no high rises. All of the old 0:07:00.960 --> 0:07:05.080 buildings are still there and they're still intact. And you 0:07:05.120 --> 0:07:07.279 know when when these big businesses came in and a 0:07:07.279 --> 0:07:09.560 lot of these businessmen were almost showing off like yeah, 0:07:09.560 --> 0:07:13.320 we're gonna turn course occur into Waibetha, which as a 0:07:13.400 --> 0:07:19.800 brit Um I would apologize to anyone living inever, you know, 0:07:20.040 --> 0:07:22.720 like having sex in the street and throwing up at 0:07:22.760 --> 0:07:26.080 bars and everything here you go there, Um, it's kind 0:07:26.120 --> 0:07:29.360 of been turned into one big not the Great club, 0:07:30.440 --> 0:07:33.440 yeah yeah, not the Great Club definitely. Yeah. So so 0:07:33.640 --> 0:07:35.400 you know, it's it's one of these ones where It's 0:07:35.400 --> 0:07:37.520 like I could kind of understand. I'm not saying anyone 0:07:37.560 --> 0:07:40.480 should bomb anywhere, certainly not, but I do understand the 0:07:40.560 --> 0:07:43.080 sentiment there. And one of the one of my course 0:07:43.280 --> 0:07:46.240 and friends said, um, some people were calling it like 0:07:46.320 --> 0:07:49.360 the cold bed policy. So you come to our island, 0:07:49.400 --> 0:07:50.960 you buy a holiday home, and if you leave that 0:07:51.040 --> 0:07:53.800 bed cold as in you're not even living here, it's 0:07:53.840 --> 0:07:56.680 gonna get blown up, you know if you like. So 0:07:57.360 --> 0:08:01.120 very militant, very violent, but if effective. I mean, it 0:08:01.200 --> 0:08:02.880 doesn't mean that you have to agree with it, but 0:08:03.080 --> 0:08:05.920 no one can deny that it hasn't been effective. But 0:08:06.000 --> 0:08:08.080 at the same time, there's a very big mafia presence 0:08:08.120 --> 0:08:10.120 on the island as well, so that you know, it's 0:08:10.160 --> 0:08:11.920 not to say that everything is all for the people. 0:08:13.480 --> 0:08:16.040 I'm going to guess that the mafia is more or 0:08:16.160 --> 0:08:19.240 less on the side of, you know, turn this place 0:08:19.280 --> 0:08:21.800 into a vacation destination because that's where the money is. 0:08:21.920 --> 0:08:25.320 That that would be my essentially. Really that's interesting. No, 0:08:25.600 --> 0:08:28.760 So the unfortunately the independence movement, not all of them, 0:08:28.800 --> 0:08:30.400 but there is an element to it that is very 0:08:30.720 --> 0:08:34.280 hand in hand with the mafia. Most definitely, perhaps some 0:08:34.440 --> 0:08:40.760 people that were independent militants are now mafia if you like. Um, 0:08:41.760 --> 0:08:44.040 and people have been killed on the island quite a lot. 0:08:44.080 --> 0:08:46.640 There's quite a lot of you know, unsolved murders there. 0:08:46.679 --> 0:08:50.680 It's quite sad. Um. But no, they they were more 0:08:50.960 --> 0:08:54.400 for keeping their own interests. You know, Um, we have 0:08:54.520 --> 0:08:56.719 this island, we can run the docks, we can run this, 0:08:56.880 --> 0:09:00.079 we can run that. And whilst what you said like 0:09:00.200 --> 0:09:01.959 makes sense, right, you would think, oh, no, they'd be 0:09:02.000 --> 0:09:04.520 for this money. I think what they want. They're still nationalists. 0:09:04.520 --> 0:09:06.480 At the end of the day. They won't control, but 0:09:06.520 --> 0:09:09.000 they won't control in their own way. If the big 0:09:09.080 --> 0:09:11.360 business comes in and start saying, oh, yeah, we're doing 0:09:11.400 --> 0:09:12.880 this and that and the other, and we're bringing all 0:09:12.920 --> 0:09:15.440 these people in via the docks, I guess they lose 0:09:15.480 --> 0:09:18.319 control of that essentially. So they were very much on 0:09:18.400 --> 0:09:20.800 the side of yeah, do what you like sort of thing, 0:09:20.920 --> 0:09:25.520 and I think fascinating. Yeah, so very unique, very specific place. 0:09:26.000 --> 0:09:28.360 You mentioned that this action you shut up for people 0:09:28.440 --> 0:09:34.480 bombed twenty one targets in one night. In one night. Yeah, 0:09:34.720 --> 0:09:37.120 when you say bomb, are we talking like your standard 0:09:37.160 --> 0:09:40.079 molotabs or were they are? Were they kind of like 0:09:40.200 --> 0:09:43.920 more elaborate devices? Shall we say, how would you describe 0:09:43.960 --> 0:09:46.560 what they were using? Yeah, no, it's a good question. 0:09:46.600 --> 0:09:48.360 I mean when you think of twenty one in one night, 0:09:48.480 --> 0:09:52.920 you think, right, like molotovs night, something simple. Yeah, yeah, No, No, 0:09:53.040 --> 0:09:57.080 they weren't even pipe bombs. You're talking fertilizer bombs. Yeah, 0:09:57.200 --> 0:10:00.439 like blowing whole buildings, you know, not all of them, 0:10:00.559 --> 0:10:02.520 you know, there were some smaller ones, but some very 0:10:02.679 --> 0:10:06.679 significant ones um and very very big. The way of 0:10:06.760 --> 0:10:09.720 Corsica is the way it's laid out. Like I said, 0:10:09.760 --> 0:10:12.280 it's a small place. I think currently like three people 0:10:12.320 --> 0:10:15.480 lived there roughly, and there were mountains, there were beaches, 0:10:15.679 --> 0:10:19.360 there were very rural communities. It's an islands. It's quite 0:10:19.440 --> 0:10:21.839 far away from France. Actually, it's very close to Italy 0:10:22.320 --> 0:10:25.560 um and Sardinia is just to its south. And it's 0:10:25.600 --> 0:10:27.599 just for them. If you were you couldn't ask for 0:10:27.640 --> 0:10:29.400 a better location, if you wanted to be a kind 0:10:29.440 --> 0:10:31.880 of guerrilla group, you know, you really couldn't. It's kind 0:10:31.880 --> 0:10:33.959 of built for them. So they just got away with it, 0:10:33.960 --> 0:10:36.840 you know, farmers whatever, they went into the mountains, build 0:10:36.880 --> 0:10:40.000 bombs dropped them off. And not to say that everybody 0:10:40.120 --> 0:10:43.120 was for them, but there is some It wasn't just 0:10:43.400 --> 0:10:46.760 we want independence, there was there was subjugation by the French. 0:10:46.840 --> 0:10:48.760 You know. Firstly, they're like, we don't want to be 0:10:48.800 --> 0:10:50.960 a French colony or whatever you would call it anymore, 0:10:51.040 --> 0:10:54.480 which I think anybody that wants their determination to not 0:10:54.600 --> 0:10:58.040 be held by a former colonial power it's fine, or 0:10:58.160 --> 0:11:00.800 current colonial power if you like, I think, yeah, fair 0:11:00.840 --> 0:11:04.040 play to them. But secondly, they're one of the most 0:11:04.160 --> 0:11:07.680 poorer regions, despite having all this holiday stuff, despite having 0:11:07.679 --> 0:11:09.840 a lot of produce, despite having a lot of reasons 0:11:09.880 --> 0:11:12.880 to be there. So there's definitely something. I won't claim 0:11:12.920 --> 0:11:15.520 to know too much about the law situation, and I'm 0:11:15.559 --> 0:11:17.599 sure a lot of French people get angry whatever, but 0:11:17.760 --> 0:11:21.880 it is genuinely doing very badly in many different aspects. 0:11:22.640 --> 0:11:25.040 Is that mismanagement by them? Is it because of the French? 0:11:25.080 --> 0:11:26.719 I couldn't tell you. I don't know enough about it, 0:11:26.800 --> 0:11:29.439 but I certainly find it very weird that all of 0:11:29.520 --> 0:11:32.000 these beautiful things that happened on the island and they're 0:11:32.000 --> 0:11:37.200 they're constantly in you know, the lower bracket of situations economically, culturally, 0:11:37.200 --> 0:11:39.319 they're getting kind of sidelined a bit. So I do 0:11:39.520 --> 0:11:42.600 I do understand, and certainly when the clashes or even 0:11:42.679 --> 0:11:46.800 protests happen in the seventies, the police, you know, French police. 0:11:46.840 --> 0:11:49.480 I'm sorry, but there's some of the worst fucking police ever, 0:11:50.679 --> 0:11:53.160 you know. And I've been in front of Turkish police, 0:11:53.200 --> 0:11:55.959 like French police are fucking up there. They're horrible, and 0:11:56.240 --> 0:11:59.120 they beat the ship out of a lot of people 0:11:59.240 --> 0:12:02.439 in Cortica just for peacefully protesting, you know. So it 0:12:02.520 --> 0:12:04.240 didn't come from nowhere, you know what I mean, there 0:12:04.320 --> 0:12:07.559 is there is more to it than just nationalism and independence. 0:12:07.600 --> 0:12:09.520 There's a lot more to it. They want to, they 0:12:09.600 --> 0:12:11.160 want to they want to deal with their own affairs, 0:12:11.200 --> 0:12:13.440 a lot of them, you know, most people probably now 0:12:13.520 --> 0:12:15.839 want to do it democratically. But like I said, the 0:12:15.880 --> 0:12:17.920 youth were said, no funk, that we're not getting anywhere, 0:12:18.240 --> 0:12:20.920 and they've Actually it's actually worked because the day after 0:12:21.000 --> 0:12:25.960 the Rights that we filmed on March thirteen, the Interior 0:12:26.080 --> 0:12:29.319 Minister of France basically said, right, we're willing to discuss 0:12:29.440 --> 0:12:32.120 this with you. We will go as far as autonomy. 0:12:32.240 --> 0:12:35.240 That's literally a quote he said, which is quite significant. Yeah, 0:12:35.280 --> 0:12:38.719 after seven years of basically stalemate through the politicians, so 0:12:38.840 --> 0:12:41.000 the youth in a way one of the very few 0:12:41.640 --> 0:12:45.160 examples of this, specifically in Europe. The youth, what they're 0:12:45.200 --> 0:12:47.920 doing kind of worked, you know what I mean, like 0:12:48.360 --> 0:12:53.000 direct action got got some goods, started the process of 0:12:53.080 --> 0:12:56.400 getting the goods hopefully. Absolutely, yeah, yeah, it has. And 0:12:56.679 --> 0:12:59.359 the thing about the course scan youth is they're very intelligent, 0:13:00.240 --> 0:13:04.599 very they're very authentic in their political activism in the 0:13:04.720 --> 0:13:07.280 sense of it's just they're born into it. It's in them, 0:13:07.320 --> 0:13:09.800 you know, from the age of like twelve thirteen, they're 0:13:09.880 --> 0:13:12.720 understanding it. They're getting told about the legends of blah blah. 0:13:12.800 --> 0:13:16.520 You know, um, there's there's militant group and whatever whatever. 0:13:16.600 --> 0:13:19.360 So there's very much in them in that sense, kind 0:13:19.400 --> 0:13:21.040 of in a you know, like the Kurds are kind 0:13:21.120 --> 0:13:22.760 of you know, not on the same level, but that 0:13:22.880 --> 0:13:25.760 kind of vibe. So when they go to students, when 0:13:25.800 --> 0:13:28.599 they go to UNI and they become students, they're not 0:13:28.960 --> 0:13:31.880 really forming their political opinions. They already have them, they 0:13:31.920 --> 0:13:35.720 already got them, and then they they sort of higher, 0:13:35.880 --> 0:13:38.640 they sort of germinate together. So that's from what I 0:13:38.720 --> 0:13:41.800 understood anyway, that's from what I gathered. And you know, 0:13:41.920 --> 0:13:44.400 your average trendy young man and woman on the street. 0:13:44.800 --> 0:13:47.839 There is very political. It's kind of like Greece in 0:13:47.920 --> 0:13:51.000 that sense, like it's cool to be political, but in 0:13:51.040 --> 0:13:55.400 the sense of not the kind not like um, you know, 0:13:55.559 --> 0:13:57.600 not not something you brought into as a teenagers, something 0:13:57.640 --> 0:13:59.760 that was already there and then which which there's nothing 0:13:59.800 --> 0:14:01.679 wrong with it. You know. Most people fall in their 0:14:01.679 --> 0:14:04.679 political opinions in unis or whatever. But for them, it's 0:14:04.679 --> 0:14:06.800 already in there, you see what I'm saying. So they 0:14:06.840 --> 0:14:10.480 already have They're already united in that sense, you know. 0:14:10.679 --> 0:14:12.280 So when they get to the UNI, they get there 0:14:12.600 --> 0:14:15.280 it's like, okay, well we all want independence or autonomy, 0:14:15.720 --> 0:14:17.839 but then the other things are lesser, so you know, 0:14:17.960 --> 0:14:19.600 for that in that really, in that sense, I think 0:14:19.680 --> 0:14:24.000 that was quite interesting. And we saw eight thousand, nine 0:14:24.080 --> 0:14:27.520 thousand people marching maybe and then when the clashes started, 0:14:28.440 --> 0:14:30.080 you know, it is well, but like normally it's like 0:14:30.160 --> 0:14:34.000 what a hundred three people stay talking, like two thousand 0:14:34.080 --> 0:14:39.120 people help clashing, and men and women like young girls, 0:14:39.240 --> 0:14:42.200 young men, like many many, you know, So it was 0:14:42.280 --> 0:14:44.680 really I was like, wow, okay, and one one thing 0:14:44.720 --> 0:14:47.240 that I've never I haven't seen for a very long time. 0:14:47.320 --> 0:14:50.600 I've very rarely seen it. Normally, when the clash happens, 0:14:50.800 --> 0:14:54.240 everybody you know, your grandma's, you're working man, you know, 0:14:54.360 --> 0:14:56.800 the people that support what's going on but are not 0:14:56.960 --> 0:14:59.760 able to clash or don't want to clash, they normally 0:14:59.760 --> 0:15:04.040 stay back. In the Corsican protests, everybody just stayed. Like 0:15:04.160 --> 0:15:06.680 we were getting tear gas next to like fifty lads 0:15:06.720 --> 0:15:11.320 with balaclabas on, next to like grandma or auntie, you know, 0:15:11.520 --> 0:15:14.000 and we're like helping people into the side street to 0:15:14.000 --> 0:15:16.240 get away from tear gas. It's very weird. They just 0:15:16.400 --> 0:15:19.720 didn't leave. They just were there the whole time. It's 0:15:19.760 --> 0:15:32.240 weird when you're talking about like tactically, what is this, 0:15:32.760 --> 0:15:35.640 How are these kind of bombings being pulled? Arthurs? So 0:15:35.720 --> 0:15:37.640 you've got like this huge crowd and they're just kind 0:15:37.640 --> 0:15:41.560 of like marching from target to target. Um. So the 0:15:41.680 --> 0:15:44.360 youth are not really I mean, they have some small 0:15:45.080 --> 0:15:46.960 kind of I D s you know what I'm saying, 0:15:47.000 --> 0:15:50.840 that youth student youth protesters, but generally it's Molotov's bricks, 0:15:51.120 --> 0:15:57.240 burning barricades. But they very clearly know the islands inside out. 0:15:57.320 --> 0:15:59.840 They know their streets, you know, obviously because they lived 0:15:59.840 --> 0:16:03.160 there and most of the police, from what I understand, 0:16:03.320 --> 0:16:06.520 are actually French called in from the island, from the mainland. 0:16:06.560 --> 0:16:09.840 Sorry to the ILA. A lot of the CRS riot police, 0:16:10.000 --> 0:16:12.240 thousands of them were brought in there was that they 0:16:12.280 --> 0:16:15.440 were actually completely outnumbered. They had to retreat at one 0:16:15.480 --> 0:16:18.440 point in in the evening to go back to the 0:16:18.520 --> 0:16:23.400 prefecture kind of cultural French administrative building where the main 0:16:23.560 --> 0:16:25.920 the main target of violence was. They had to retreat 0:16:25.960 --> 0:16:28.320 to get more ammunition because they just they just shot 0:16:28.480 --> 0:16:30.920 so much tea gas um. They just couldn't, you know, 0:16:30.960 --> 0:16:33.720 they couldn't do anything. There were some teams like the youth. 0:16:34.400 --> 0:16:37.840 Some of them had green arm bands or green leg bands, 0:16:38.160 --> 0:16:40.360 so they were very clearly like a different unit, and 0:16:40.440 --> 0:16:43.440 they were very well organized. They didn't have walkie talkies, 0:16:43.440 --> 0:16:46.960 mind you normally that that shows a closer sign of organization, 0:16:47.080 --> 0:16:48.760 but some of them were like that. Some of them 0:16:48.800 --> 0:16:50.680 were just turned up to fight, and some of them 0:16:50.760 --> 0:16:53.680 were splitting off into different groups. You would see one 0:16:53.760 --> 0:16:56.760 come in, they'd fight, fight, fight, and then they'd leave, 0:16:56.880 --> 0:16:58.720 and as they're leaving, another load would just come in 0:16:58.760 --> 0:17:01.320 in the line. It was was really quite interesting. You know, 0:17:01.440 --> 0:17:04.280 they'd really thought about it. Um, it wasn't just a 0:17:04.359 --> 0:17:07.359 free for all, which it might look like. But you know, 0:17:07.560 --> 0:17:10.320 after a while of covering riots, there's certain things you 0:17:10.440 --> 0:17:14.280 notice where you're like, Okay, they're planning this, they're planning that, 0:17:14.480 --> 0:17:16.480 you know what I'm saying. So it's quite interesting in 0:17:16.560 --> 0:17:19.440 that sense. Um, but yeah, man, it's yeah, that was 0:17:19.600 --> 0:17:22.720 a that was a youth fighting. Um, it did get messy. 0:17:23.040 --> 0:17:26.960 I think forty four police were injured, thirteen protesters and 0:17:27.080 --> 0:17:29.600 one pedestrian. That was the official figures. I saw at 0:17:29.640 --> 0:17:33.240 least three pedestrians injured, and I think probably more protesters 0:17:33.320 --> 0:17:35.719 and definitely more cops, I would say. Yeah. I mean 0:17:35.800 --> 0:17:38.239 obviously it also depends on like what you're raiding as 0:17:38.280 --> 0:17:41.200 an injury for that sort of thing. Yeah. Yeah, And 0:17:41.280 --> 0:17:44.280 a lot of folks probably are avoiding the hospitals and 0:17:44.359 --> 0:17:46.879 being dealt with at homes and whatnot because they were 0:17:47.040 --> 0:17:50.880 committing some crimes. Yeah, just like you know at home 0:17:51.080 --> 0:17:54.399 with superglue and sort of stitches or whatever. Yeah. Um, 0:17:55.160 --> 0:17:57.000 do you have a sense of like how long? But 0:17:57.119 --> 0:17:59.359 the kind of the back end of this was the 0:17:59.440 --> 0:18:03.320 preparation and process was for this. Yeah, so the classes 0:18:03.400 --> 0:18:06.640 have been ongoing before we got there for about a week. 0:18:07.119 --> 0:18:10.680 So even Colinar was beaten into this coma. He was 0:18:10.800 --> 0:18:13.800 he was attacked in prison. There's some rumors that he 0:18:13.880 --> 0:18:17.240 said some kind of Islamophobic thing to the inmate, and 0:18:17.280 --> 0:18:18.720 don't know how true that is, but all we know 0:18:18.880 --> 0:18:22.520 is the guy was actually a you know, convicted jahadist. 0:18:22.600 --> 0:18:24.520 It's not kind of his say that the guy the 0:18:24.560 --> 0:18:28.159 inmate was a convicted jahadist. Because obviously even Colinar is 0:18:28.200 --> 0:18:31.160 in the type of prison where what the state says 0:18:31.280 --> 0:18:33.159 is terrorists are there, you know what I mean, anybody 0:18:33.280 --> 0:18:35.960 terrorists is there, So it makes sense he's amongst these people. 0:18:36.480 --> 0:18:38.480 And I think he was attacked in the gym when 0:18:38.520 --> 0:18:41.320 he was on his own and he was strangled, and 0:18:41.640 --> 0:18:44.280 this this is where yeah, yeah, this is where there's 0:18:44.280 --> 0:18:48.879 a weird point of contention. He because of the special 0:18:49.040 --> 0:18:53.560 status he had as such a violent militant or whatever, 0:18:54.000 --> 0:18:55.760 he shouldn't have really been on his own like that. 0:18:56.440 --> 0:19:00.600 And some people were speculating did something happen, But generally 0:19:01.600 --> 0:19:04.119 most people we spoke to were like it was probably 0:19:04.200 --> 0:19:07.119 just negligence, you know, they weren't very conspiratory. There was 0:19:07.160 --> 0:19:09.760 someone like, oh, the French. The French plan is I 0:19:09.880 --> 0:19:11.960 doubt it. It doesn't make much sense to do this 0:19:12.240 --> 0:19:14.040 right now, Like you know, they would knew what would 0:19:14.080 --> 0:19:16.880 happen to be on calling our to the people. Sorry 0:19:16.880 --> 0:19:18.720 if he's on Colling our wash because he's a big 0:19:19.240 --> 0:19:23.399 you know, a big name there. There's also some you know, 0:19:23.560 --> 0:19:28.680 maybe interesting arguments around the case, the way he was arrested. 0:19:28.880 --> 0:19:30.720 Apparently the gun doesn't match up. I don't know. I 0:19:30.720 --> 0:19:32.680 didn't really get into that. But either way, he's like 0:19:32.800 --> 0:19:34.520 a you know, people there love him, you know what 0:19:34.600 --> 0:19:36.959 I'm saying. He's like a matter for them, even though 0:19:37.080 --> 0:19:38.560 you know he shot this guy in the back in 0:19:38.920 --> 0:19:41.000 in cold blood essentially, but for them that was a 0:19:41.040 --> 0:19:46.119 political assassination whatever. So so for about a week, the 0:19:46.240 --> 0:19:49.160 youth were fighting, and I saw a video and anything 0:19:49.200 --> 0:19:51.159 that happens in course, I'm right, I'm looking at it, 0:19:51.840 --> 0:19:53.640 and I was like, okay, this this is a little 0:19:53.640 --> 0:19:56.880 bit different. Okay, molotovs are out again. Hasn't haven't seen 0:19:56.920 --> 0:19:58.720 that for a while. And then the next day and 0:19:58.760 --> 0:20:00.640 then the next day, and then it's had one night 0:20:01.200 --> 0:20:04.719 to like five different cities or like sorry, three different cities, 0:20:04.760 --> 0:20:07.760 like big, big places and then they burned like a 0:20:07.920 --> 0:20:10.760 very specific monument, so that was like, oh, it's on. 0:20:10.960 --> 0:20:15.960 So for at least a week they were they were 0:20:16.000 --> 0:20:18.520 planning something, you know, and there was enough kind of 0:20:19.000 --> 0:20:23.240 um momentum there, I think for them to organize. Certainly, 0:20:23.280 --> 0:20:25.800 we know that there was people from a jat CEO 0:20:25.840 --> 0:20:28.879 of the capital city in Bastia where we filmed it, 0:20:28.960 --> 0:20:31.520 Like a lot of people drove in. They came, you know, 0:20:31.920 --> 0:20:35.040 specifically for this clash, so that was quite interesting. I 0:20:35.119 --> 0:20:37.440 think the youth movement have a very strong network there, 0:20:37.720 --> 0:20:40.480 and there's also quite a big football ultra scene there. 0:20:40.840 --> 0:20:44.400 So the day before the clashes, Bastia and the JATSO 0:20:44.560 --> 0:20:48.560 had a derby, So obviously I imagine a lot of 0:20:48.600 --> 0:20:50.359 the ultras, or at least I know a lot of 0:20:50.400 --> 0:20:54.399 the ultras were also part of the independence groupings and 0:20:54.480 --> 0:20:56.560