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Evolution & Revolution. Resentment against the French mainland (which Corsicans still call le continent) is nearly as keen as that against the repatriates. Complains Jean Zuccarelli, 33, a philosophy teacher turned farmer: "France can provide irrigation for Communist countries, can pour aid into North Africa, but hasn't enough money to help Corsica." This is not quite true: Somivac, the French-supported farm agency, has built six dams and developed 104 farms in the past six years at a cost to Paris of some $20 million. In an effort to placate the locals, Somivac last week nervously assigned four additional farms to native Corsicans, rather than to the repatriates for whom they had originally been intended. Somivac's tourist counterpart, Setco, has already built four new hotels and is carving yacht basins along Corsica's bright, barren beaches—the most beautiful in the Mediterranean. The island's feral beauty has drawn visitors in increasing numbers—443,000 last year (up 20% from 1963).
Corsica's angry natives want more than tourism. "We want autonomy," says Philosopher-Farmer Zuccarelli, "with our own Parliament and our own budget." A delegation of Corsican officials, recently returned from a ten-day tour of autonomous Sicily and Sardinia (which still retain ties with Italy), felt the same. "Autonomy is the essential ingredient," said one. "This is not just evolution, but revolution," said another. Paris doubtless was recalling the words of Corsica's favorite son. Regarding Corsican separatism, Napoleon himself took a realistic view: "All these notions of national independence for a little island like Corsica!" exclaimed Bonaparte to his brother Lucien in 1802. "What difference does it make in the universal balance?"