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Thousands of demonstrators gathered this Sunday afternoon in Corte to show their support for the Corsican independence activist, in a coma after an attack in prison. The island’s nationalist parties took part in the demonstration, which was marked by clashes.
On Sunday, there were several thousand to meet at the call of the student unions at the Corte station, headquarters of the Pasquale-Paoli University, in support of Yvan Colonna, a Corsican independence activist convicted of the assassination of the prefect Erignac and assaulted Wednesday in Arles prison by a jihadist detainee. Launched Thursday at the end of a general assembly such as the nationalist family has not known for years, the demonstration had as its motto “Statu inglese murdered” (“the murderous French state”). A political slogan resurrected from the 80s and 90s, when the Corsican National Liberation Front and its offshoots were very active, which immediately gave it a belligerent tone.
The day before, however, the family of Yvan Colonna had hoped, through a press release, that the mobilization could expand to “Other sensitivities, political associations or others”, to give it more strength. But since Wednesday, tension has continued to rise on an island shocked by the violence of the attack. The arrival of law enforcement trucks landed Thursday has stirred up a little more island anger. In recent days, Gilles Simeoni, President of the Executive Council of Corsica since 2015 and former lawyer for Yvan Colonna, and the other leaders of the autonomist and separatist parties (they received 70% of the votes in the June territorial elections) have multiplied statements to incriminate the state. They judge him directly…