Corsican nationalist Yvan Colonna has died at the age of 61, several French media confirm. Colonna was attacked earlier this month by a fellow inmate at a prison in the south of France, leaving him in a coma as a result. He died today in a hospital in Marseille, France.
After the attack on Colonna three weeks ago, heavy riots erupted in Corsica. Dozens of police officers and nationalist demonstrators were hit during those riots injured† The demonstrators held the French authorities partly responsible for the attack on the nationalist, who had never been transferred to a prison in Corsica despite multiple requests to do so. There he would be closer to his family.
Separatism
Yvan Colonna was serving a life sentence in France for the murder of the governor of Corsica in 1998. He was arrested in 2003, after the authorities found him after a major manhunt in a shepherd’s hut on the island in the Mediterranean.
Colonna is considered a hero by Corsican separatists. On the island, the FLNC separatist movement has fought violently for independence from France for decades. The organization laid down its arms in 2014, but nationalist parties still hold a majority in Corsica’s regional parliament.
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