Thursday was a day of recollection in Ajaccio, Corsica. At the Picchetti Funeral Home, hundreds of people crowded around the coffin of pro-independence activist Yvan Colonna. Covered with the flag, the Corsican flag, and roses, he was placed in the middle of candles, baskets of white flowers and two youth portraits of the former shepherd of Cargèse. He is to be buried in his village on Friday.
It is the child of the country who comes to greet the people who march, without dwelling on the fact that this same man has been sentenced three times to life imprisonment for the murder of Prefect Claude Erignac, killed by several bullets, some in the head, in 1998 in Ajaccio. Asked by reporters, Gilles Simeoni, president of the Corsican Community, thus refuses to dwell on the controversy over the flags fluttering in Corsica. “We respect death. It is cultural, ”said the elected official, who was surrounded by several other representatives of the local political class.
Yvan Colonna’s 10-year-old son present
Nearby, Christine and Stéphane, sister and brother of Yvan Colonna, receive messages of support, in the presence of the two children of the deceased, including his 10-year-old son, seated next to the coffin. “We want justice to be done for Yvan and the guy to be judged harshly,” insists Yvan Colonna’s mother-in-law, Santa Casasoprana, holding back tears: “It’s sad to die like that. No one deserved this death. »
“My grandson, the poor, he is very sad”: the last time he saw his father, “he was eight years old, it was two years ago”, “because of the Covid”, adds the mother of Stéphanie Colonna, who had married the member of the “commando Erignac” in prison.
The burial will take place Friday afternoon, in Cargèse (Corse du Sud), family stronghold of the Colonna, a hamlet of 1,300 inhabitants in the west of the island. Father Antoine Forget, known as Father “Tony”, of the Latin church in the village, which also has a Byzantine rite parish, said that a deacon brother would say a few words about the deceased. If a large crowd is expected, only 150 people will be able to slip into the church, said the priest.