On 16 April 1981, the Ajaccio Napoleon Bonaparte Airport was targeted with two large time bombs[1] placed in the airport terminal in an attempt to assassinate French president Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, who had landed in Corsica for a presidential visit only two minutes before the bombs detonated.

[3] At around 5:10 p.m. on Thursday, 16 April 1981, a call was made to local police forces in Ajaccio, claiming that a large bomb attack was about to occur at the Ajaccio airport during the landing of the plane carrying Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, who was travelling to Corsica to campaign for the upcoming 1981 election.

Due to the tense climate in Corsica at the time, the police disregarded the call and labeled it a hoax.

The director of the anti-terrorism cells in Paris took note of the lack of police action, even with a phone call warning of the attack nearly 10 minutes before it occurred.

This was the leading theory of Roger Colombani, editor for le Matin de Paris, who claimed to have been informed that the Marseille sector of the SAC had “played a certain role”.

The ceasefire would end later in 1982 after the French government failed to deliver on many promises, notably the removal of the Foreign Legion from Corsica.