The demonstration of support for Yvan Colonna degenerated on Sunday. The public finance center was set on fire and 67 people were injured, including 44 law enforcement officers.
Despite the calls for calm launched by many island elected officials during the week, the demonstration this Sunday in Bastia, in support of Yvan Colonna, which gathered around 7,000 people according to the police, 10,000 to 12,000 according to the organizers, violently degenerated in front of the Haute-Corse prefecture, the scene of almost daily clashes last week.
Leaving around 3 p.m. from the Bastia courthouse, the procession, at the head of which were students chanting “Statu inglese assassinu”, “murderous french state“, but also “Liberta” Where “French shit”, calmly descended boulevard Paoli, the city’s main artery, before reaching the prefecture. There, a few dozen hooded men, carrying bags filled with Molotov cocktails, joined the demonstrators who greeted them with applause. The throwing of projectiles and homemade bombs on the prefecture responded with tear gas and CRS disencirclement bombs. The clashes spread to the streets adjacent to the prefecture, and the public finance center was set on fire.
According to a report established at the end of the day by the authorities, 67 injured, including 44 members of the police, are to be deplored at the end of this riot. Still according to the prefecture, the CRS were the target of pellet rifle fire: a policeman was hit “while he was back“.
” A political solution »
In the procession, everyone said they hoped that everything would go calmly. ” The objective is not to put Bastia on fire and blood“, confided the nationalist deputy Michel Castellani. The lifting of the status of particularly reported detainee (DPS) of the two other members of the “Erignac commando“, announced Friday by Matignon and paving the way for their rapprochement in Corsica, has sparked controversy among nationalist activists: for some, violence is more effective than the action of elected officials. “I refute violence repeats Michel Castellani.To say that elected officials are useless is to call into question universal suffrage . »
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Among the protesters, feelings are more mixed. José and Carole, Corsican flag on the back, came to claim the autonomy of their island. “It’s unfortunate that violence is needed, but without it we have nothing “, they observe. Anghjulu-Petru, 16, did not have class all week because his school was blocked by demonstrators, but he did not participate in the movement. “There are dangerous people who come just to break things up or to say ‘I’m Corsican’”. he smiled. He nevertheless came this Sunday “to support Yvan Colonna because what is happening is really not fair“. Two young girls from the Calvi region are also taking part in their first demonstration. Violence, they do not deny it: “The young people in seven days, they made a carnage and it worked. If you have to do this… “.
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“We still hope for appeasement but we know that it can only happen with a clear signal from Parisestimated for his part Jean-Christophe Angelini, mayor of Porto-Vecchio and leader of the Party of the Corsican nation (PNC), of autonomist tendency.Calls for calm don’t change anything, we need a political solution that includes the release of prisoners“. However, the violent clashes of the day risk not favoring a peaceful dialogue with Paris.