There is a grim, almost admirable efficiency to murdering a man at a funeral. Consider the logistics for a moment, if you can detach yourself from the performative pearl-clutching that inevitably follows such events. The mourners are already assembled, dressed in their finest bleak attire. The priest is on the clock. The hole is already dug. In terms of project management, turning a memorial service into a double feature is strictly good time management. It is, perhaps, the only instance of efficiency one will ever find in the Mediterranean, a region otherwise defined by lethargic bureaucracy and wine-soaked procrastination.

Yet, the headlines scream that the island of Corsica is 'shocked' by a recent gangland execution amidst the tombstones. Shocked? Really? To be shocked by a murder in Corsica is akin to being stunned that the floor of a movie theater is sticky or that a politician has sold their grandmother for a polling bump. It implies a level of willful ignorance that borders on the pathological. This is not the Cotswolds. This is not some neutered, sanitized suburb where the HOA measures the grass height with a ruler. This is Corsica, a place where the primary export is not olive oil or goat cheese, but the vendetta.

Let us dismantle the word 'idyllic,' which every lazy journalist slaps onto descriptions of this rock like a garnish on a plate of rancid meat. Yes, the water is blue. Yes, the cliffs are dramatic. But beneath that postcard veneer lies a societal structure that hasn't evolved significantly since the Bronze Age. We are talking about a locale that boasts one of the highest murder rates in France, a statistic that stands as a testament to the local populace’s conflict resolution skills. When a disagreement arises in civilization, one sues. In the 'idyllic' south, one waits for a funeral procession and opens fire. It is tribalism masquerading as romantic outlaw culture, and frankly, it is boring.

The tragedy here isn't just the loss of life—though I’m sure the deceased was a paragon of virtue, as all gangland targets inevitably are in the teary-eyed retrospectives of their accomplices. The tragedy is the collective delusion that this is an anomaly. The 'Isle of Beauty' has a long, illustrious history of blowing things up. Post offices, police stations, holiday villas, and each other. The violence is as much a part of the terroir as the grapes. To pretend otherwise is to engage in a fantasy where human nature is fundamentally good, rather than a simmering pot of greed and violence held in check only by the threat of incarceration.

And let us speak of the French state’s role in this sordid little drama. The Republic loves to posture about law and order, projecting the image of a centralized, powerful entity that tolerates no nonsense. In reality, their control over Corsica is about as firm as a damp crepe. The police descend, they tape off the scene, they collect the brass casings, and then they run face-first into the 'Omertà'—the code of silence that is romanticized in fiction but in practice is simply cowardice branded as honor. No one saw anything. No one heard anything. The shooter might as well have been a phantom conjured by the coastal wind. It is a conspiracy of silence that implicates the entire community, turning every silent witness into an accessory to the barbarism they claim to despise.

We must also address the sheer tackiness of the venue choice. There was a time when even the most degenerate cutthroats respected the sanctity of the cemetery. It was a line in the sand—you kill a man in the street, in a restaurant, or in his bed, but you let him put his mother in the ground first. That this line has been crossed suggests a deterioration in the quality of our criminals. We aren't dealing with the brooding, principled godfathers of cinema; we are dealing with impulsive, adrenaline-addled thugs who lack the patience to wait for the reception. It is the Uber-fication of organized crime: fast, cheap, and devoid of any professional standards.

So, spare me the shock. Spare me the weeping over the shattered peace of an idyllic paradise. The peace was never there. It was merely a pause between gunshots. The locals will bury the dead, scrub the blood off the church steps, and go right back to glaring at each other across the cafe tables, waiting for the next opportunity to settle a score that probably began over a stolen goat three generations ago. The world is not a polite place, and Corsica is simply honest enough to admit it with a bullet.