Paris to Beef Up Corsican Legal System : Violence: France acts to re-establish control after a series of bombings by a separatist group.

The French government, acting hours after a series of bombings by a separatist group in Corsica, said today that it will strengthen the criminal justice system on the island in an effort to re-establish control there.

About 70 men set off bombs late Wednesday night and early today in coordinated attacks on four vacation villages and several private residences, destroying more than 80 homes but causing no injuries, police said.

In a statement after an emergency Cabinet meeting called to deal with the crisis, the government reaffirmed its policy to grant greater autonomy to local administrative bodies on the troubled Mediterranean island and appointed a new prefect in charge of security.

“The coexistence of a political opening in Corsica and the reaffirmation of the state’s authority and prerogatives on the island is perfectly possible,” Deputy Justice Minister Georges Kiejman said after the session, which was directed by President Francois Mitterrand.

But apart from saying it would move to strengthen the local judicial system and increase cooperation between the police and the courts in an effort to capture those responsible for the bomb attacks and three political murders in as many months, the government released few details.

It did, however, reject sending police reinforcements to the island.

The government also reiterated its support for Interior Minister Pierre Joxe, who has pursued a highly controversial policy of increasing autonomy for local administrative bodies and last fall pushed through a controversial law officially recognizing the Corsicans’ ethnic “specificity.”

The Front for the Liberation of Corsica issued a statement claiming responsibility for today’s bombings and warning the government not to abandon “a political solution based on the recognition of the rights of the Corsican people.”

In the most dramatic of the six bombings, a group of at least a dozen men destroyed 48 vacation homes still under construction in the town of Sagone, 24 miles north of Ajaccio in southern Corsica.

In another action a heavily armed commando group of about 30 men successfully fled police after being trapped while trying to blow up bungalows at a naturalist vacation village in Linguisetta in northern Corsica, police said.

The commandos released the 14 hostages, then managed to escape by sea despite the arrival of about 70 police. Authorities said officers could not completely surround the sprawling village, which includes more than 100 bungalows in an area of several acres.

A third group made up of four to five men burst into the a vacation village in Sainte-Lucie de Porto Vecchio in southern Corsica and blew up 11 vacation homes belonging to German nationals.