A few dozen activists from the Corsican independence party Core in Fronte gathered Sunday on the road leading to a villa of Prime Minister Gabriel Attal in Coti Chiavari (South Corsica) at the height of a gendarme roadblock, noted a journalist from the AFP. Despite the ban on this demonstration by the prefecture, activists from Core in Fronte, a minority party in the Corsican Assembly, deployed Corsican flags, black Moor’s head on a white background, and banners indicating “Basta repression” and “gendarmes, SDAT forum (anti-terrorist subdivision)” (outside in Corsican language). “We are not here to carry out a home invasion”, underlined Paul-Félix Benedetti, boss of Core in Fronte, in a speech, “we are here to convey a clear political message”.
To denounce the arrest of an independence activist, Stéphane Ori, indicted and imprisoned at the end of March in a judicial investigation opened by the national anti-terrorism prosecutor’s office, Core in Fronte called on Wednesday for this gathering to be held on Sunday at 2:30 p.m. “in front of the house of Gabriel Attal. On Friday, the prefecture banned this “undeclared” demonstration, and on Sunday gendarmes blocked the road leading to Mr. Attal’s villa. The authorities said they feared that “radical individuals” were “likely to take advantage of this call to rally, which is currently circulating on social networks, to commit disturbances to public order”.
“Let them start to respect the Corsicans”
“We are negotiating a solution to end the conflict and in a sneaky and harmful way repressive logic is being used. This does not bode well for a peaceful discussion. Today, attacking activists is a direct attack,” Paul-Félix Benedetti told AFP. “The figures of the State, if they love Corsica, let them start to respect the Corsicans,” he added. On February 3, independence activists from the same party entered a house belonging to the Minister of Justice, Eric Dupond-Moretti, in the village of Centuri in Cap Corse (Haute-Corse). An investigation was opened for home invasion and aggravated damage. The activists had claimed a “symbolic and political operation” targeting the minister’s “secondary home”, in order to “denounce the repressive mechanisms in Corsica”.