One injured as 14 bombs explode in Corsica

Fourteen bombs exploded across the French island of Corsica overnight, injuring one man and damaging five banks, police said.

No one immediately claimed responsibility, but separatists fighting for autonomy from Paris have carried out similar attacks in the past.

The bombings come a week before French Interior Minister Nicholas Sarkozy was due to visit the island.

The attacks damaged five banks in Ghisonaccia, a police garage in Alleria, a water pump station and an food company in a Bastia suburb.

Several villas were also damaged. A bomb planted at a tax office in Migliacciaro failed to go off.

Sarkozy is expected in the island for a conference on decentralisation on October 25. Bombers attacked a police station a few days before his last visit in July, and a similar wave of bombing occurred during the night of the presidential election run-off on May 5.

Corsican separatists have waged a campaign of low-level violence for more than two decades, bombing French public buildings, summer homes, and holiday resorts. People are rarely injured or killed.