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Corsican guerrillas

extend truce

AJACCIO, (Corsica): The biggest separatist guerrilla movement in Corsica on Friday extended a three-month truce for a further six months, saying it was expecting economic concessions from Paris for the French Mediterranean island.

In an interview published by the newspaper La Corse-Le Provencal on the day the truce expired, a spokesman for the "historic wing" of the Corsican National Liberation Front (FLNC) said: "bomb attacks on French state property are suspended for six months."

"We take into account that the Corsican people expect major decisions for the economic and cultural renewal of the island to be unveiled next June," the spokesman said.

The newspaper said the spokesman was surrounded for the interview by hooded activists who, unlike in previous clandestine meetings with the press, were not armed.

The spokesman welcomed plans to make Corsica a duty-free area as a major step forward that would boost employment.

Paris last month said it would turn Corsica into a tax haven, subject to European Union permission, to attract investment in the hope of ending separatist violence.

Nationalist groups have conducted a low-intensity guerrilla campaign against French rule since 1980, with dozens of night-time bomb attacks on empty government buildings, holiday facilities and villas owned by people from mainland France.

The island has been tense since the "historic wing" of the FLNC declared a truce last January after secret negotiations officially denied by the Paris government.

Two other groups which have been locked in a tit-for-tat assassination war with the "historic wing" accused the authorities of negotiating exclusively with the FLNC and its political wing to the exclusion of other nationalists.-Reuter