The French Mediterranean island has not calmed down since a jihadist in prison critically injured the Corsican nationalist Yvan Colonna eight days ago. Colonna is serving a life sentence for a politically motivated assassination.
The anger of Corsica’s nationalists erupted in the streets of Ajaccio.
For a week now there have been demonstrations in the Corsican cities of Corte, Bastia, Calvi and Ajaccio almost every evening. Violent clashes erupted between young protesters and law enforcement. The reason for the displeasure is an incident in the Arles prison in southern France. There, a 35-year-old man convicted of terrorism, who was extradited to France after his arrest in Afghanistan, attacked 61-year-old Corsican Yvan Colonna in the gym. The reason given by the perpetrator was that Colonna had insulted him with blasphemous remarks. The jihadist then tried to strangle the older fellow prisoner. Colonna has been sentenced to life imprisonment for his role in the 1998 assassination of French Prefect Claude Érignac. He’s been in a coma since the attack.
France’s prison authorities consider the Corsican nationalist Colonna to be particularly dangerous. As a result, like 350 other prisoners who are classified as DPS (“détenus particulièrement signalés”), he should have been particularly closely monitored. That another prison inmate known for his violent behavior came into contact with Colonna unobserved raises questions. They are now to be clarified in an administrative and judicial investigation. For Colonna’s sympathizers and his family members, however, it is already clear that the authorities bear some responsibility because of their carelessness or negligence. Attorneys for the Colonna family have filed a lawsuit.
Frustrated middle school students
The Corsican separatists, who have been protesting on the streets for more than a week, accuse the French state of “murder”. Colonna’s requests to be transferred from Arles to a prison in Corsica were regularly rejected with reference to the prisoner’s great risk of escaping. Corsica’s nationalist movements have long demanded that those convicted of political offenses or crimes should be allowed to serve their sentences in Corsica.
Although most Corsicans reject violent actions against people and especially the attack on the then prefect Érignac, Colonna now becomes a symbol or even a martyr of the Corsican cause. However, this only partially explains the motivation of the mostly very young demonstrators. For them, the riots also seem to be a way to vent a pent-up feeling of disrespect. According to the police, who complained that many of their ranks were injured, those arrested were mainly middle school students, many as young as 14.
On Wednesday evening, the already very violent riots of the previous days escalated. In Corsica’s capital Ajaccio, demonstrators broke into the Palace of Justice. They set fire there, but it was quickly extinguished. Others stole a bulldozer, which they used to demolish a bank branch. The fact that masked people threw not only stones and steel balls but also Molotov cocktails at the law enforcement officers, who in turn used tear gas and shock grenades, indicates that the violent attacks were planned.
deceptive calm
From the 1970s onwards, the Front de liberation national corse (FLNC) carried out numerous bomb attacks against tourist real estate projects and state institutions. After the FLNC split in 1990, the nationalists took their fight to assert Corsican special interests to the political stage. Ever since an alliance of moderate autonomy movements led by Gilles Simeoni won the regional elections to the Assemblée de Corse and governed the island in 2015, there has been calm on the “Île de beauté”, as Napoleon’s home island is also known. As it turns out, it was a deceptive calm.