Originally Posted by NYMafia
Originally Posted by TheKillingJoke
Originally Posted by Havana
Originally Posted by Malavita
In the 80's, Salvatore Contini, a member of the Sardinian mafia, and Jean marc Leccia, a famous chemist of the French connection, killed Guy Orsoni, a member of an important criminal clan which is still active today and runs part of Southern Corsica. Contini and Leccia were quickly arrested.

At the time, the Orsoni clan was also involved with the independantist guerilla in Corsica so it had 3 of their guys break in to the prison and kill Contini and Leccia then surrender to the police.

That's the Corsicans for you...Fierce people.


Are Corsicans Italian but just politically part of France?
Or are they French in a area that is geographically part of Italy?
Or a mixed Italian/French people with no way to distinguish if a Corsican is either French or Italian?



The island of Corsica was mainly settled by migrants from Tuscany and Liguria. When it comes to genetic heritage the Corsicans are basically original Northern Italians. Due to the fact that they lived on an insular and mountainous island in the Mediterranean they developed their own close-knit traditions. I'd say they're ethnically Northern Italian (Tuscan/Ligurian) and culturally closer to Sicilians (seeing Sicily is in many ways a "sister island" of Corsica). Due to the fact that they've been living under French rule for a long time they adopted for instance French first names, but ethnically and culturally they're in many ways more "Italian" than they're "French".



I agree with your assessment. In fact, if you look at many Corsican first names and surnames, many at very Italianate in both their spelling and pronunciation. To the point that you think you're reading about Italians. And yes, the close geography of Sicily and Corsica also plays a part in this.



For some reason Ligurians ,like in Genoa were considered ethnically/racially as Southern Italians during the Italian diasphora to America in early 1900s