“Despite the difficulties, the obstacles, sometimes the threats, [je suis] confident, serene and determined. » Threat ? This word slipped by Gilles Simeoni in his 2023 greetings speech has not gone unnoticed: since his first election, in 2015, the president of the Corsican executive never mentioned the pressures he would be subject to. “No one twists my arm”he had even firmly warned during the debate against mafia excesses organized, mid-November 2022, at the Assembly of Corsica.
No complaint has been filed by the president of the Corsican executive, who refuses to expand: “At this stage, I have no further clarification to provide”he said to Monde. But the subject, hitherto taboo, is now in the public square, and many activists have planned to question Mr. Simeoni, Sunday, January 15, during the general assembly of his party, Femu a Corsica, in Corte. Between mafia pressures and those of an ultra-nationalist wing, the safety of the island’s number one has become a political subject since it has been the common denominator of a series of recent events.
On October 27, 2022, it was first this red stain on Gilles Simeoni’s jacket. Oh ! not much, and this dried blood seen after the violent fights which have just occurred is not that of Gilles Simeoni, but it strikes the spirits. That day, at the Assembly of Corsica, the “boss” of the island tries to calm the fifty nationalist militants who, in the middle of the session, forced open the locked doors of the hemicycle to demand from him “the settlement of the question of political prisoners”in particular those who were condemned for the assassination of the prefect Erignac. “This is our house! »
A former lawyer for Yvan Colonna, Gilles Simeoni has placed the question of the “reconciliation” of prisoners on the island at the heart of the discussions started with the Ministry of the Interior around the status of autonomy. Detained for twenty-three years on the continent, Alain Ferrandi and Pierre Alessandri, sentenced to life imprisonment, ended up being transferred to the prison of Borgo (Haute-Corse), in April 2022, after the fatal attack on Yvan Colonna in the central house of Arles (Bouches-du-Rhône). But their access to day parole is suspended until January 25 and 31 at the court’s decision – two high-risk dates. After much palaver, the adoption of a resolution ends up calming the demonstrators and closes a day at “little airs of Capitole”, according to a close friend of the president, reference to the seat of the American Congress, stormed, in January 2021, by supporters of Donald Trump.
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