Louis de Raguenel and Frédéric Michel and AFP
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11:39 a.m., April 04, 2022
Corsican nationalists were to meet Gérald Darmanin, Minister of the Interior, on Friday to begin a series of negotiations around the future of the island. This meeting was eventually cancelled. “As it stands, the meeting is adjourned,” added a source familiar with the matter to Europe 1.
Gilles Simeoni, president of the Corsican executive, was to be present at this meeting. The presidents of groups, in particular the separatists, deputies and senators of the island were also to be present.
Twenty injured, three seriously
This cancellation comes the day after violent demonstrations in Ajaccio in Corsica this Sunday. Twenty people were injured, three of them seriously. The rally degenerated Sunday in Ajaccio, where several thousand people had gathered. Clashes broke out between a hundred young people and the police in front of the police station and the prefecture.
In the seriously injured, a woman who had her calf torn off. The worst was avoided, a gas pipe caught fire, three buildings had to be evacuated near the Ajaccio market place. The firefighters, caught in the crossfire, suffered several tear gas shots, which added to the tension between the executive and the nationalists.
Emmanuel Macron condemns the violence
Emmanuel Macron judged this Monday “unacceptable” the violence in Corsica and affirmed that there would be “no discussion” without “return to prior order”. “What I saw this weekend is unacceptable, including with political leaders at the head of the procession,” he said on France Inter, the day after the demonstration.
According to the President, the assassination of Yvan Colonna in prison is “serious and unacceptable”, but the latter “is not a hero” because “he was condemned on several occasions” and was “the cowardly assassin of the prefect Érignac ” in 1998.
“The Republic cannot accept that a detainee be shot in these conditions by another detainee, and that is why I will take very clear measures on the basis of the reports and all the facts that will be given to me. “, he added.
But “the return to order is a prerequisite for everything”, warned the head of state. “There will be no discussion with people who behave like this,” said Emmanuel Macron.
“I am in favor of any development if it meets the needs of the population. This is why I have always said “there is no taboo” but “autonomy is not independence” and “is not an objective in itself”, he stressed.