The World - News from June 2, 1988

Separatists fighting a bloody independence war on France’s Mediterranean island of Corsica said they are declaring a four-month halt in military operations. The announcement, made at a secretive news conference in Ajaccio, was greeted with relief by merchants on the sunny island gearing up for a busy summer tourist season. The separatists said they will suspend all attacks because of “the political situation which has returned the French left to power.” They called on France’s new Socialist premier, Michel Rocard, to release Corsican guerrillas held in French jails. The outlawed Corsican National Liberation Front has claimed responsibility for dozens of killings and hundreds of bombings in the 1970s and 1980s.