Name: Sun, Sea, Sand and a Good Chance of Being killed
Uploaded: 2013-12-18T18:44:07.000Z
Duration: 26 min 19 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

Hundreds of kilometres south-east of the French mainland you can still find some of the last

A stunning spine of rugged, often snow-capped mountains, long winding ribbons of unspoiled,

It's no wonder they call Corsica the "Isle of Beauty".

Corsica's remote terrain has bred a tough, self-reliant community and in the untamed

hills and valleys, hunting is a Corsican tradition.

Some of these men have hunted together for decades, today they're chasing wild boar.

In Corsica the hunt of the wild boar is a custom which has lasted for generations.

It allows us to get together, to have a good time and to keep our friendships, because

above all, the hunt is about friendship".

Hunting is of course hit and miss and while these men will spend the morning without bagging

a prize, Corsica remains a renowned destination for hunters from all over Europe.

But it's famous for something else as well. The island is the murder capital of Europe,

with a homicide rate seven times that of mainland France.

"We can no longer count how many people have died. We don't have accurate figures for the

number of murders or attempted murders. It's huge".

Based in the capital Ajaccio, Paul Ortoli is a crime reporter for Corsica's daily newspaper.

murder rate, but Ortoli says that more and more high profile victims are being killed.

he believes, that the criminals think they're untouchable.

"The more violent the murder, the greater the impact. The more high-profile figures

are murdered, the more we have the feeling that the mafia is powerful".

The recent hit list includes some of the island's more powerful figures. Jean-Luc Chiappini,

Mayor and National Parks President, gunned down in his car while leaving the airport.

Dominique Domarchi, Mayor and Advisor to Corsica's Chief Executive, shot at his front door.

Jacques Nacer, President of the South Corsican Chamber of Commerce, assassinated on a main

And late last year, the murder in broad daylight of Corsica's most famous lawyer, Antoine Sollacaro.

"What you feel at the time is terror - something which stuns and paralyses you at the same time.

Like his father, Paul Sollacaro is a defence lawyer. Father and son often worked together

in the criminal courts of Corsica and Southern France. Paul Sollacaro is still coming to

"You're in shock and it's like living in a bad dream or rather a nightmare. To tell you

the truth you can't believe it. You can't believe it".

Antoine Sollacaro was killed one morning last October. The lawyer was heading to work in

downtown Ajaccio. As usual, he drove from his home via the local garage to buy a newspaper

but on that day, a motorbike was tailing him.

At the garage, the motorbike passenger jumped off and shot Sollacaro in the head, firing

another volley to make sure. It was a professional hit.

Crime reporter, Paul Ortolli was on the scene within minutes.

"When we realised it was Antoine Sollacaro, we said to ourselves that we'd gone to another level,

because Antoine Sollacaro wasn't just a lawyer - he represented the government and the rule of law

We wondered how far this spiral of violence would go.

We had the impression that anyone could get killed at any time and anywhere".

Also on the scene was Corsica's top local politician, Dominique Bucchini

"Unfortunately we are the most criminal region in Europe.

That's enough. That's enough. We must be able to live peacefully and with each other's differences".

The murder of Antoine Sollacaro sent shockwaves across Corsica and mainland France.

"When my father died the violence exploded

into the face of French people in all the country, that the violence was there before,

every day, and the French people realised Corsica was a very violent place".

"So who do you think is responsible for your father's death?"

I think the situation we're in in Corsica is serious. It is complicated. We're in a mindset of assassinations,

because the criminal world is re-organising the world of organised crime in Corsica

Many believe Antoine Sollacaro was the victim of feuding gangs.

There were 19 murders last year and now we're up to 14 murders.

In Ajaccio the most symbolic and high profile murders are committed - Antoine Sollacaro

The theory is the criminal lawyer, through his work, had become too close to one faction.

"What we can say is that Antoine Sollacaro, as a lawyer, could be thought as close to

some criminals and by targeting him, a symbol was being killed and that gang was being targeted".

"The death of Sollacaro was clearly a sign that there are currently major tensions

between different gangs which are emerging at the moment".

Gabriel Culioli is a writer and close observer of Corsica's crime scene.

"With the end of the older generation of criminals

a younger generation is emerging who cares less about clashing with the state.

To get power they're prepared to kill in a much more brutal way than their elders. That's the difference".

"Since 2008, organised crime has re-formed. There have been fights between rival gangs

over the economic interests of business, control of drugs, control of illegal gambling, gaming

rooms in Paris... They are fighting over their share of the pie".

The biggest money spinner on Corsica now is land and property.

In  the tourist playgrounds on Corsica's coastline, the sun, the sand and island charm attract

millions of visitors every year - but with the tourists come huge development pressures.

Property values have exploded in the last decade and where there's money to be made,

So the underworld - that is, organised crime -

is interested in all these places and they're putting pressure so they can eventually monopolise

the land, even farming land, and then develop it - with or without the agreement of a certain

The booming property market is also the ideal machine for laundering dirty money.

The money is invested in property and it becomes entirely legal.

You can't trace it back anywhere. The money becomes legal and becomes part of Corsica's mainstream economy"

It's Corsica's mayors who are at the sharp end of the pressure - they have the power

to say yes or no to developments. Today a group of officials from the island's north

are gathering to talk business and swap stories. Among them is Ange-Pierre Vivoni, a mayor

for 20 years. Vivoni thinks the influx of fast money has changed Corsica.

"We went from the 20th century to the 21st without a transition.

Every continent, every island in the world has had some kind of transition.

It didn't happen here. We went from living as peasants to being obsessed by gain".

With  so much money at stake, being a mayor has become a dangerous job.

In the past few yearsa number have been shot dead. Ange-Pierre Vivoni says mayors are under constant pressure

"The threats are pretty simple. Sometimes they want to kill you because you are clearly

in the way. We annoy certain people. Then it's phone calls... you never know who's on

But if those threats scare you, if those threats make you back down, that's when you've lost