Corsica: Emmanuel Macron calls for calm after the death of Yvan Colonna

In the aftermath of the death of Yvan Colonna, after his violent attack in Arles prison in early March, the Head of State appealed for calm, while the Corsicans prepare to pay tribute to the independence activist, sentenced to prison in perpetuity for the assassination of the prefect Claude Erignac, in 1998. In Corsica, it was time for meditation on Tuesday, the day after the death of the independence activist Yvan Colonna, with “Glory to you Yvan” which bloomed on the walls , against a background of calls for calm, in particular from the Head of State. “Gloria à tè!” inscribed in black set the tone of the emotion aroused by the death, after three weeks of coma, of the most famous Corsican prisoner in France, who was serving a life sentence, for the assassination in 1998 of the prefect Claude Erignac. Facts he has always denied. In the kiosks, the front page of Corse-Matin catches the eye: the hand of a woman, her fingernails painted, caressing a poster of the face of the nationalist militant. For Gilles Simeoni, autonomist president of the Executive Council of Corsica, on Twitter, the death of Yvan Colonna “is an injustice and a tragedy, which will mark the contemporary history of Corsica and its people”. “Corsica is going through an identity crisis, and with Yvan Colonna , she found her incarnation, her martyr”, analyzes Dominique, 60 years old. “I fear, I fear that after the mourning, it will burst”, continues this Corsica, who returned to settle twenty years ago on the island, questioned in the streets of Ajaccio. >> To read also on France24.com: Colonna affair: how to explain the outbreak of violence which is shaking Corsica Overall, few agree to speak, out of respect for the family. But the emotion is there. In Ajaccio, several hundred young people – 250 according to the authorities – demonstrated peacefully on Tuesday morning, passing to light candles in front of the cathedral, behind a head banner in homage to the former shepherd of Cargèse, “Yvan martiriu di à cause corsa” [Yvan martyr de la cause corse]“We want to show our support for the family,” explains Chjara Secondi, 17, who hopes there will be no outbursts of anger until the funeral, the date of which has not yet been announced. “[Mais] at some point, the Corsican people will show their anger [car] the days we have just spent call for a profound change”, still thinks Gérôme, 41. Another rally is planned in Bastia in the afternoon. In this context, the President of the Republic, Emmanuel Macron, estimated on France Bleu that “the most important thing is that calm is maintained”, welcoming in passing “the spirit of responsibility” of the Corsican elected officials. “I wish the return to order in Corsica and I call on all our compatriots Corsican calm and restraint”, had urged the LR presidential candidate, Valérie Pécresse, on Monday evening. “All the light will be shed”Sulidarita, one of the associations for the defense of Corsican political prisoners, was in another register. “Woe to the murderous French state”, thus promised on Twitter its secretary general, Katti Bartoli. The attack on Yvan Colonna on March 2 at the prison of Arles (Bouches-du-Rhône), by an inmate ” jihadist”, had aroused almost unanimous anger on the island, many Corsicans believing that this attack would never have taken place if the activist had been transferred to Corsica as he had been asking for a long time. “All the light will be shed on the sequence that led to this situation which is not acceptable”, has again promised government spokesman Gabriel Attal on Tuesday, about the attack on the Corsican activist, violently attacked by a radicalized fellow prisoner who had attacked him for eight minutes, under the gaze of a surveillance camera and without no intervention from the guards. In an attempt to calm the situation, the Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, spent three days on the island at the end of last week, lifting the taboo of a possible autonomy for the island. He then announced that the conclusions of the administrative investigation into the attack on the former Cargèse shepherd should be made public by the end of this week. of the Arles power plant, initially scheduled for Wednesday, has been postponed for a week, “in order to respect the mourning of the family”. “If the law had been applied and Colonna brought closer, this tragedy would not have happened”, repeated Tuesday morning Michel Castellani, Corsican nationalist deputy, on franceinfo. After the National Assembly of Catalonia or the Basque party Sortu, which from Monday evening brought the support of these two regions with a strong nationalist color, it is the FLNKS, supporter of the independence of New Caledonia, and the Social Union of Kanak Workers, who expressed their support on Wednesday. With AFP