“French murderer!” Shouted a man at the head of the procession, immediately taken over by the crowd: behind this slogan “French assassin state”, thousands of people marched this Sunday in the streets of Corte (Haute-Corse), in support of Yvan Colonna.
Under a fine and cold rain, the demonstrators – 4,200 according to the prefecture, 15,000 according to the nationalist organizers -, gathered in front of the station of Corte, the old Corsican capital in the 18th century, began to march towards the sub-prefecture.
Students behind the rally
Corsicans from all over the island, in support of “Yvan”, as they call him. The pro-independence activist, imprisoned in Arles (Bouches-du-Rhône) for the 1998 assassination of Prefect Erignac, was violently assaulted by a fellow inmate on Wednesday. Since then, he has been in a hospital in Marseille between life and death.
At the head of the procession, students, at the origin of the rally, advance behind a banner with a photo of Yvan Colonna and the slogan “French assassin state” in Corsican.
All of the island’s nationalist parties, trade unions and associations for the defense of Corsican prisoners, and even the Corsican Human Rights League had also called for demonstrations.
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Incidents and injuries
Started calmly, the demonstration was peppered with incidents from 4 p.m. Young people in hoods threw projectiles over the barriers, flower pots, breeze blocks, bottles. In response, security forces responded with water cannons and tear gas.
Two hours after the start of the incidents, a hundred rioters continued to confront the police, while most of the demonstrators remained on the Cours Paoli, in the background. As they passed, the protesters, all in black and with raised fists, were applauded by the demonstrators.
Several garbage cans were set on fire as well as a car registered in the Rhône. A French flag was burned by protesters.
Firefighters counted 25 injured among the demonstrators, 15 of whom were taken to hospital.
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“Hypocrisy of the State”
Anne Seta, 55, is not a nationalist, but calls herself a regionalist. She came from Ajaccio, an hour and a half away, because “it already affects on a human level (…), it’s important to be there for Yvan and the family”. “We fight to be heard, we fight against injustice, as Hugo said, it’s the fight between light and shadow,” she continues.
“It shouldn’t have happened if it had been heard, it feels like hypocrisy from the state, contempt, too,” she insists. The prisoner, who has been sentenced to life imprisonment, as well as two other members of the “Erignac commando”, have been asking for years to serve their sentences in Corsica, close to theirs, which they have always been denied.
In the crowd, Simone Cambiaggio, 49, activist of the autonomist party Femu a Corsica, came from Bastia, more than an hour away to “send a message to the French state to listen to us a little more (. ..). What has just happened is serious because it gives us the impression that this assassination attempt was sponsored by the state,” she said.
“Shit French! »
Yvan Colonna’s family demanded on Sunday that “the investigation shed light on the multiple administrative dysfunctions” and expressed their doubts about the “jihadist track” put forward by the national anti-terrorism prosecution.
Passing through the narrow streets of the center of Corte, the procession, alternately shouting “French de merde!” » and « Yvan! Ivan! Ivan! calls people watching the protest from their windows to applause. In front of the Corte hospital, around fifteen caregivers also came out to encourage them.
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