Two rallies quickly interspersed with scuffles were held on Sunday in front of two barracks near Bastia and in Ajaccio, at the call of independence organizations which accuse the CRS of having sung the Marseillaise on the day of the funeral of the activist Yvan Colonna, according to AFP journalists.
These calls for protests were launched by the pro-independence movements Core in Fronte, Corsica Libera (a minority in the Corsican Assembly) and nationalist student unions, the main drivers of this mobilization after the death of Yvan Colonna, then assaulted in prison. that he was serving a life sentence for the 1998 assassination of Prefect Claude Erignac.
In front of the Furiani barracks, south of Bastia, at least 500 people had moved. Shortly after the start of the rally in the early evening, a few dozen young people shook the gates of the cantonment, lit a fire, provoking tear gas from the CRS, noted an AFP correspondent.
Then, around fifty hooded demonstrators threw stones, smoke bombs and Molotov cocktails at the police. They were only a handful around 9:00 p.m.
A sign in Corsican “Francesi di merda” (Shit French) was also hung and a French flag burned.
Two law enforcement officers were slightly injured in the hand, Haute-Corse prefecture told AFP. Firefighters reported a few minor injuries at the protesters.
In Ajaccio, some 200 people also gathered in front of the Aspretto barracks. Some protesters lit a fire in front of the gate, leading to a retaliation by law enforcement with tear gas and a water cannon, an AFP correspondent said. The dispersal took place shortly after 8 p.m.
Since Saturday, nationalist circles have been outraged on social media in a video allegedly shot in the CRS cantonment of Furiani on the day of the funeral where a Marseillaise is heard without distinguishing those present. Corsican MP Jean-Félix Aquaviva (Libertés et Territoires group) called for “accountability to the government”.
The autonomous party Femu a Corsica of the president of the executive council of Corsica Gilles Simeoni, who did not call for a demonstration, however, denounced a “pure colonial hatred”.
“There are two worlds, and when there is such a strong sociological rift, there may be a need for de facto separations,” Paul in Félix Benedetti, a pro-independence leader of Core in Fronte, told Furiani.
The police information and communication service (Sicop) did not wish to make “communication on this video”.
According to a police union source interviewed by AFP, “this company was on rest and they ate outside because the weather was right. As usual, they sang many songs including La Marseillaise, but without connection with the funeral of Yvan Colonna”.
Another union source said: “The songs are real but no connotation of anything”, and another local source said that no words against Yvan Colonna were heard.
ag-mp-san-alh / iw / dlm