A book by Nicolas Jourcin returns to the journey of a dozen emblematic figures of the Corsican Middle in the 20th century

A graduate of history. However, political science, the Bastiais Nicolas Jourcin publishes sidewalks from Marseille to the French Connection, a work that draws the portrait of several emblematic figures of island banditry, from Paul Carbone to Jean-Jé Colonna. Meanwhile, We met him.

Through these figures of organized crime, it is a story of the island mafia that you trace …
Not really. Moreover, Besides. Similarly, I refused that the book book nicolas jourcin returns journey is called the History of the Corsican mafia, because a historical work is working on sources. Moreover, Others have done so, and very well, and I relied on their work, essential, but I did not do it. Similarly, Working on official sources. Similarly, on judicial archives, in the field that interested me, that of organized crime, this is not enough.

For what ?
Because it is a too fragmented vision. For example, Take Marcel Francisci, for example. Similarly, At the time of French Connection, it was the Grand Manitou. Consequently, But his criminal record is practically empty! Consequently, And this is the case for many other stakes. Therefore, The story of organized crime, it is not in official documents … Therefore, Let’s take an example: if you want to write on the connections between the Corsicans of the French Connection. In addition, which flooded the United States of the purest heroine book nicolas jourcin returns journey that exists, and the relatives of Charles de Gaulle or the bag, and that you count on official sources, you will not go away …

What interested me to show is how there is a transmission of power from time to. Moreover, time

How did you do it?
I accumulated documentation. Furthermore, I read everything I could read, I met people, those who had worked on the question, and others who had rubbed shoulders with the environment. This is what with a little luck, we can get some threads.

Have you been able to meet when you have grips?
I woven links with certain figures. such as José Giovanni, a writer and director that I admire, but who was also a thug, it was never a secret. A thug who had been sentenced to death, pardoned, and who had known the mid -1940s well.

book nicolas jourcin returns journey

You have chosen to divide your book not into chapters, but in portraits. We meet Carbon and Spirito, “Le Beau Jean-Paul” Stefani, Jo Renucci, Lucky Luciano’s interlocutor, or the Guerrini clan …
I designed this book as a spine of the island medium. Each character or clan sums up a period of Corsican organ banditry, and all this is articulated. What interested me to show is how there is a transmission from time to time. Even if we book nicolas jourcin returns journey were not in a pyramid system. since it was a set of families who held a lot of power, this power was transmitted, from generation to generation, sometimes in the blood, to the last of the old sponsors, Jean-Jé Colonna.

Your book ends with his portrait. For what ?
Precisely because, for me, it is after Jean-Jé Colonna that everything will change. It is the advent of a new environment, which will take the place of the old. And then the current period has already been tremendously documented by people such as Follorou, Ploquin, Pierrat … What more than this period?

From the 1990s. while Paris concentrated all its attention on the fight against nationalism, the environment will invest in business in Corsica

What has changed with the advent of this new big banditry?
We see perfectly the change of time, for book nicolas jourcin returns journey example in the geographical rocking of the activity of the triggers. Until then, this activity took place almost exclusively elsewhere. In Marseille, in Paris, in the ex-colonies, in South America …. then gradually, from the 1990s, while Paris concentrated all its attention on the fight against nationalism, the environment will invest in business in Corsica. We saw it with the sea breeze. which was initially a team of robbers, who accumulated a huge fortune, and invested it largely on the island.

With what consequences?
The criminal bands, gradually, will infiltrate in all areas of island society. Until you have a grip on the island’s economic and political levers. Until then, we did not speak of mafia, rightly, because the operation had nothing to do. Today, this is no longer the case.

How did you come to work on the milestones?
TOut of the world. or almost, in Corsica, at one time or another, can feel a certain fascination for island banditry. But fascination is not synonymous with admiration. In the early 2000s. I was very interested in the question, and when I realized how fundamental the Corsican component was in the history of the French environment, I wanted to dig even more. About fifteen years ago, an acquaintance offered to write a book on the subject, which he would have published. What I did. But ultimately, the project did not succeed. I lived it badly, and I left everything book nicolas jourcin returns journey aside.
But with the development of digital, I saw a possibility of finally giving a real existence to my work. I took it back, reread, corrected, and then last September I published it on the internet. But it remained frustrating. My attachment to the paper book pushed me to look for an editor. I then sent the manuscript to several of them, in Corsica and on the continent, and Anima Corsa replied positively.

Are you talking about fascination for this environment … Isn’t that one of the aspects of the problem in Corsica?
In any case, me, by dint of working on the subject, it happened to me, you can believe me. The stories, the journeys of these men, are incredible. Bigger than the craziest of films or novels. But it is difficult to be fascinated by people who are assassins.
And then, more broadly, they have book nicolas jourcin returns journey a relationship to the death given, to the death received, which is … What seems crazy, is that it always ends in the same way. These are always newcomers. that no one has seen arriving, who end up taking the place of those at the top. Everyone knows that it will end badly, the first. But that doesn’t dissuade anyone. There is an irrepressible side which is fascinating …