A new demonstration for Yvan Colonna, an independence activist fatally attacked in prison, began Sunday afternoon in Ajaccio, with the risk, in the event of violence, of delaying the announced opening of discussions with the government around a possible autonomy for the island.
At 3:00 p.m., a procession of several thousand people, behind two large banners bearing the now traditional slogan “French state assassin”, set off under the sun towards the prefecture. In the midst of dozens of banderas, the Corsican flag struck with the head of Moor, also emerged a Basque flag and a large Breton flag.
This march brought together at least 3,800 people according to a first count by the authorities, 14,000 according to the organizers, a large nationalist collective demanding “justice and truth” for Yvan Colonna. This collective was formed after the fatal attack on March 2 of the nationalist activist, who was serving a life sentence for the assassination of the prefect Claude Erignac in 1998 in Ajaccio.
Composed of separatist and separatist political parties, nationalist unions and associations for the defense of prisoners, this movement was already at the origin of the major demonstrations of March 6 and 13 in Corte and Bastia, which ended in violence. 7,000 people had gathered in Bastia according to the authorities, 15,000 according to the organizers.
Faced with new risks of overflows, an imposing security device was put in place on Sunday in Ajaccio, in particular in front of the prefecture or the courthouse, which had been the target of the demonstrators on March 9, with a fire in the room of not lost.
“Faced with this deadly France and in memory of the patriot Yvan was, we will all be together on Sunday for the demonstration in Ajaccio,” his brother Stéphane Colonna wrote on Twitter on Tuesday in Corsican. On Sunday, he was indeed at the head of the procession, surrounded by very young protesters, children for some, who chanted the cry of “murderous French state.”
– Molotov cocktails and pétanque balls –
Among the protesters was also Gilles Simeoni, autonomous president of the executive council of Corsica. Another figure visible in the procession: Charles Pieri, alleged leader of the National Liberation Front of Corsica (FLNC), a movement that recently threatened to resume the armed struggle, or Paul-Félix Benedetti, the leader of the pro-independence party Core in front.
In front and on the sides of the march, nearly a hundred young people, hooded and equipped with gas masks or ski masks, were already ready for scuffles, Molotov cocktails in hand for some, while smoke bombs began also to appear.
Before the demonstration, several dozen projectiles had been seized by the police, including dozens of petanque balls.
The Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, had promised, during his visit to Corsica from March 16 to 18, to open “from the first week of April” a process of negotiations on “all the Corsican issues “, including” the institutional evolution towards a status of autonomy that remains to be clarified “.
If Mr. Simeoni brought forward the day of April 8 for the opening of these discussions, this date has not been confirmed by Beauvau.
In a document they had co-signed on March 18, MM. Darmanin and Simeoni had agreed “that the implementation of this historic process” could only “be envisaged in a peaceful and calm general framework”.