French president Emmanuel Macron is heading to Corsica for a two-day visit at a time when nationalists on the Mediterranean island are gaining influence.

Macron will start his visit by paying tribute to the late prefect Claude Erignac, who was shot dead 20 years ago in Ajaccio by pro-independence activists. Erignac was France's top official on the island.

Macron will then meet with nationalist leaders, Gilles Simeoni and Jean-Guy Talamoni.

Simeoni, the head of the regional assembly, said Macron's visit is "an extremely important moment with the potential to become historic" in the complicated and conflictual relationship between the French state and Corsica.

Thousands of nationalists demonstrated Sunday ahead of Macron's visit, asking for more autonomy, equal status for the Corsican language and the release of so-called "political" Corsican prisoners held in mainland prisons.

In December, Corsican nationalists swept the election for a new regional assembly, crushing Macron's young centrist movement and traditional parties. The nationalists want more autonomy from Paris but unlike many in Spain's nearby Catalonia, they aren't seeking full independence.

They also want protections for locals buying real estate on the destination that the French refer to as the "Island of Beauty," which is famed as Napoleon's birthplace.

The shooting of Erignac, 60, marked a peak in violence on the island. He was shot three times in the head outside a theater in Ajaccio on Feb. 6, 1998. The assassination stunned France as Corsica's violence had been mostly low-level at the time, often involving bombs planted in cars or buildings overnight, when no one is inside.

Corsica, home to 330,000 inhabitants, has been part of France since 1768.

A campaign of separatist violence began in the mid-1970s but nationalists have laid down weapons to focus on political means. The strategy paid dividends in December when a coalition of moderate and harder-line nationalists won 56.5 percent of the vote in regional elections, obtaining 41 of the 63 seats in the new assembly. Candidates from Macron's Republic on the Move! party won just six seats.