Word: corsica
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...French government insists that the South Pacific blasts are necessary to test a triggering device for its first operational thermonuclear weapons, but it insists that they pose virtually no danger to human life. (If that is so, replied Australian Prime Minister Gough Whitlam, why not hold the tests in Corsica?) In fact, the danger from fallout is debatable. A more compelling argument against the tests may be that they serve no worthwhile purpose. In the view of many armaments experts, France is simply wasting money by trying to develop its own nuclear capability. Having already spent an estimated $15 billion...
...tart words in London, in fact, were directed at the French, who insist that their tests are not nearly as dangerous as the Australians fear. "If there is nothing wrong with the tests," he said, "then why don't the French save some money and hold them in Corsica...
...Union Corse, an organization that originated in the parched hills of Corsica but is today centered in Marseille, rules more in fact than even James Bond imagined in fiction. It dominates the worldwide trafficking in narcotics, and in particular controls the supply and processing of heroin flowing into the U.S. from France, South America and Southeast Asia. Though it is relatively weak in the U.S., the Union Corse is far more powerful than the Mafia in many parts of the world...
...French bring a new language to international crime; the army of ordinary racketeers, for instance, is known simply as the "milieu." The Corsican gang boss ordinarily carries his identification in plain sight-a watch-fob medallion bearing the Moor's-head crest of Corsica. Like the Mafia, the Union Corse has a code of honor, the word of a gangster is supposed to be his bond. The difference is that Mafiosi are forever doublecrossing each other-hence the present gang war in New York-while the Corsicans usually keep their word. Members of the Mafia usually submit internal disputes...
...Corsican godfathers is Marcel Francisci, 52, a flamboyant, onetime war hero (the Croix de Guerre) whose business interests include casinos in Britain, France and Lebanon. In 1968, caught in a gangland vendetta, Francisci barely escaped an ambush in a restaurant on the island of Corsica. Four months later, the men who tried to kill him were murdered in a Parisian restaurant by gunmen posing as cops. Francisci today is an elected district official on Corsica...