Corsica is French for political and historical reasons but ethnically speaking, they are part of the Italian "race" (for lack of a better word).

The Corsican language is as much an Italian dialect as the Sicilian, Sardinian and Calabrian. I speak Italian as a foreign language and i can understand Corsican pretty easily.

Corsica has a similar clanic, omerta and honor culture as the mezzogiorno and the Italian islands. It is a big part of why they are so dominant in the French criminal world. Interestingly, the French authorities have only recently started to consider the Corsican COs as a proper mafia like organization which need to be dealt with trough the legal tools that are efficient against OC. The last year, France has established an official informant status with a kind of WITSEC program and, so far, the first and only person to have benefited from it is a member of the Corsican mafia. He is a bit like the French Joe Valachi as he was able to reveal all the power and structure of the main Corsican group called "La Brise de Mer".