Fears of an upsurge in violence have hit Corsica after balaclava-clad separatists this week called for a ban on foreigners buying property on the Mediterranean island.

Days earlier, a separate group of high-profile Corsicans issued a warning that the island was “in the grip of the mafia to a degree never before reached”.

For decades, France’s turbulent Mediterranean “isle of beauty” was prey to nationalist attacks on property owned by non-Corsicans and any symbols of the French state, including officials.

Members of the militant pro-independence National Liberation Front of Corsica, or FLNC, were frequently linked to armed bank robbery and extortion against private enterprises through so-called "revolutionary taxes”.

But in 2014, the militant organisation announced the cessation of its armed struggle.

However, this week a group of masked activists, one brandishing a gun, announced in grainy footage that they were reviving the group in a bid to “save the Corsican people from programmed extinction”.

The activists, who pledged only to attack property rather than people, want to outlaw the sale of land or property to “non-Corsicans”. Assets bought over the past ten years should be resold “at their original purchase price”. Only Corsicans should buy them.