Nineteen years after his arrest and transfer to the mainland, Yvan Colonna returns to Corsica. The assassin of Prefect Erignac died and a legend was born. Following his assault on March 2 in the prison of Arles (Bouches-du-Rhône) where he was serving his sentence, and his death on March 21, Yvan Colonna (61 years old) became a double symbol: that of ‘a hero of the Corsican cause and – in a kind of reversal of values - that of a victim of the French state although he remains the assassin of one of its high representatives. The shepherd of Cargèse now embodies an emblematic figure of nationalism and it is safe to bet that his memory occupies a prominent place in the narrative of the gesture “patriotic” Corsica. Yvan Colonna enters insular mythology: that of the “honour bandits” who in previous centuries took refuge in the maquis to flee justice.
It is just over 10pm on Wednesday 23 March and thousands of people are forming a hedge of honor on the road as they leave Campo dell’Oro Airport in Ajaccio. The dead body of Yvan Colonna has just been unloaded from the plane that took her from Marseille to Ajaccio. Moorish-headed flags fly in the cold wind. Candle flames tear at night. The mortuary van moves slowly through a compact, silent crowd as it bends over. Near the funeral home, eight men, including Gilles Simeoni, president of the Community of Corsica and former lawyer of Yvan Colonna, sentenced in 2011 to life in prison for the murder of Prefect Claude Erignac, seize the coffin covered with the flag Corsica – the one already used for the coffin of Edmond Simeoni, Gilles’ father and the founding figure of nationalism – and they carry it for several tens of meters.
The day before, the Community of Corsica had lowered its flags, as it would have done for an official personality. An initiative that the Head of State Emmanuel Macon described as ” mistake “. Late Wednesday afternoon, activists hung flags at the head of Moor tight with a black crepe of mourning on the gates of the Lantivy palace which houses the prefecture of Ajaccio – the same one where Claude Erignac has exercised his functions from February 5, 1996 to February 6, 1998, the date of his assassination – and a white sheet with the inscription “gloria à tè Yvan” (glory to you Yvan) on the gate. The gendarmes on duty did not move.
An icon
The death of the nationalist militant arouses intense emotion and strong anger. But she also de facto decreed a truce that high school students, students and all those who have been demonstrating for three weeks, observe without hesitation. These days in Corsica, the time is for pain and contemplation. In Ajaccio, Bastia, Calvi, Corte, Porto-Vecchio and in other localities of the island, hundreds of women and men, nationalists or not, gathered on the forecourt of churches and masses were celebrated . This time of mourning devotes a kind of pause after the violence which has set various parts of the island ablaze in recent weeks. A time which, according to many actors and observers, could not be prolonged, once past the funeral of Yvan Colonna, Friday March 25 in his village of Cargèse (Corse-du-Sud). “I fear for the future”, entrusted to Worldthe mayor (Horizons) of Ajaccio, Laurent Marcangeli.
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