A few days before Pope Francis' historic visit to Corsica, Ajaccio is getting ready and its inhabitants are ecstatic: "He didn't go to Notre-Dame de Paris, he came to us. That's good!" laughs Dominique Laurent, a pensioner. "It is a very, very important event. Corsica is a very devout, very religious land," adds another resident. Jerome Filippini, the island's prefect, stressed that the mobilisation was "exceptional", with 2,200 police officers being brought in from the mainland. IMAGES AND SOUNDBITES