There is something deeply incongruous about it. The Corsican nationalists who hold press conferences wearing hoods and holding assault rifles - groups with dozens of murders and thousands of bombings to their name - believe stodgy, bureaucratic Brussels can ensure their self-determination.
"We are committed to Europe-building," says Mr Jean-Guy Talamoni, the leader of Corsica Nazione and chief negotiator of last month's Matignon Accords. "French tutelage is an intermediate stage that must disappear."
In the minds of Mr Talamoni and other nationalist leaders, the powerful, centralised nation-state is doomed within the EU and will be replaced by "the Europe of regions". In other words, benevolent rule from Brussels will supplant the heavy hand of Paris.
Mr Edmond Simeoni, the historic leader of the autonomist movement, who led the first demonstrations 25 years ago, shares Mr Talamoni's belief in a "two-way movement" whereby sovereign attributes are relinquished to Brussels while day-today governance devolves from capitals to the regions.
"Foreign affairs and defence policy will go to the supranational level," he says. "In the autonomy we achieve, we will have responsibility for everything else."
France is the last European stronghold of the Jacobin school of political philosophy, which believes that all decisions should be handed down from central government, that a nation must be one and indivisible.
The debate between Jacobins and federalist Girondins goes back to the French Revolution, but it has resurfaced with unexpected intensity over the past month because of the plan by the Prime Minister, Mr Lionel Jospin, to grant autonomy to Corsica.
Mr Jospin's Interior Minister, Mr Jean-Pierre Chevenement, is about to resign in opposition to the plan, and polls indicate that a majority of French people on left and right agree with him.
Other big European countries have already granted substantial autonomy to their regions.
"In Italy, we laugh at the trauma the French go through over Corsica," says Mr Angelo Biagini, an Italian civil servant with strong family ties in Corsica. "Italy gave autonomy to its regions right after the second World War. Our regions make their own laws, raise their own taxes, deal directly with Brussels.
"Rome has never tried to solve its problems through prefects or by force," Mr Biagini continues. "When Alto Adige wanted to be closer to Austria, we gave them German-speaking professors right away. German is the first language in their schools, Italian second; 80 per cent of administrative posts are reserved for German-speakers, and land tenure laws are modelled on Austria's."
Such measures are inconceivable in France, where a proposed constitutional change to give the Corsican assembly legislative powers from 2004 has raised virulent opposition.
Wales and Scotland gained that right in 1997, with nothing like the present uproar in Paris. Sixteen German Lander, three Belgian regions and Catalonian and Basque territories within Spain also enjoy a degree of autonomy denied to French regions.
But some French politicians cite renewed violence by Spanish Basques as proof that decentralisation can backfire.
"Since Scottish devolution, the Scots are able to elect their own officials," says Mr Francois Alfonsi, leader of the autonomist UPC-Scelta Nova party in Corsica. "But even after the Matignon Accords, the prefect in Corsica is still named by Paris. They want to maintain the tentacular power of the corps prefectoral.
The absolutism of the French state is at the heart of the question. The Matignon Accords are the first crack in the wall."
Hence Mr Jospin's attempt to bring peace to an underdeveloped Mediterranean island has been transformed into a dispute about the identity of France.
"It's completely backwards," Mr Alfonsi says. He and other Corsican politicians fear the ferocity of argument in Paris will sabotage the Matignon Accords.
Historian Dr Gabriel Xavier Culioli says Paris must adapt to the modern world and share power not only with Corsicans but also with Bretons, French Basques and Catalans, Alsatians, Savoyards and others. At present, Corsica has two prefects, three powerless assemblies, five deputies and three senators, all of whom report to Paris. "All of that for 260,000 people," Mr Culioli says. "This island is sinking under administrative representation. It costs a fortune."
Other regions are watching Mr Jospin's Corsican experiment closely. The Breton Democratic Union is hosting a congress of regional activists from all over France at Benodet, Brittany, until August 31st. When Corsican nationalists held their annual summer festival in the central village of Corte earlier this month, it was attended by Basques, Bretons, Catalans and French Guyanese, most of whom share one of the Corsicans' main demands: recognition of their language.