FRENCH celebrities who invested in plots of land on a stretch of virgin Corsican coast have been warned by nationalist militants that they will not be safe unless they stop building their luxury villas.

One of the targets was Jacques Séguéla, a prominent friend of President Nicolas Sarkozy who organised the “blind date” that resulted in his marriage to Carla Bruni, the singer. Séguéla has had to stop laying the foundations for his home after being put on a “hitlist”.

Another threatened investor was Christine Ockrent, a television presenter and the wife of Bernard Kouchner, the French foreign minister, who had been about to build a new home. Jean Reno, the actor, quietly sold a plot after being told that developing it could be dangerous to his health.

The island has long been a haunt of the glitterati: Monica Bellucci, the Italian actress, and her actor husband Vincent Cassel have a home there. Kouchner and Ockrent already own one property and had been hoping to build another on a piece of land not far from Séguéla’s. Along with Bruni they have been frequent guests on his yacht.

Sarkozy, whose first wife is Corsican, has also enjoyed holidaying on the island, where for the past four decades bitterly divided militant groups have been waging a violent campaign for independence from France.

Despite the violence, the breathtakingly beautiful island has become a magnet for property developers in recent years to the extent that nearly half its houses are holiday homes.

Until now environmentalists have been able to prevent the “concreting” of Cala Longa, a largely untouched part of the southern coast, by blocking building permits in court: permits for Séguéla and Ockrent were revoked earlier this year. In April, however, the court went back on its decision, allowing the bulldozers to start digging.

No sooner had work started on Séguéla’s land than extremists stepped into the fray. A previously unknown group calling itself FLNC-1976 wrote to a radio station warning the “colonists” not to build in Cala Longa.

“They risk paying a heavy price,” the letter said. “None of them should consider themselves safe.” The group claimed responsibility for 26 recent attacks in Corsica, where buildings are routinely blown up or machinegunned.

Environmentalists suggested that well connected French figures had pressured local officials into changing a long-standing policy of refusing building permits in Cala Longa.

“The extreme south of Corsica has become an El Dorado for big money,” said Michèle Salotti, who heads a coalition of Corsican environmental groups. “We don’t want the coast to become a wall of concrete, whatever the level of wealth or the powerful connections of those who want to build.”

Environmentalists have been questioned by police but deny any involvement with extremists. Meanwhile, Séguéla’s partly excavated property is being used by tourists - as a car park.

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