Death of Léo Micheli: a page in Corsican history is turned – France 3 Régions

He was born Etienne Micheli, in Bastia, one autumn evening in 1923. But everyone knows him by the name of Léo.

“Leo” is the name he takes, coming out of adolescence, while Europe is bending under the fascist yoke. And that the young student enters the Resistance.

To well-born souls …

Within the Pétain high school, at the top of the boulevard Paoli, Léo follows the courses of the Normal school. Far from the eyes of the Vichy police. From 1941 he carried out more and more ambitious propaganda operations there for the Communist Party, then the FN (National Front), which is an emanation of it.

Noticed by the leadership of the PC in the South zone, he was appointed in 1942 to the post of party manager for Haute-Corse. He’s not even twenty. Léo Micheli, day after day, multiplies the initiatives to fight against the occupants. He thus became the creator of the Patriotic Youth Front in Corsica, which he established across the island, taking care to pass under the radar of the authorities.

When the Italian troops landed in November 1942, he was one of the only two Communist leaders in the department not to leave Bastia. The other is Raoul Begnini, to whom he is very close.

In 1943, Etienne Micheli became Leo Micheli even for the occupants. During the riots in Bastia in March, he was noticed by the Vichy police and the Italians, and he who, until then, had acted in resistance to the very heart of the fascist machine, was forced to join the maquis. On September 8, 1943, he actively participated in the insurrection led by the Communist Party and the National Front in Bastia.

A man of convictions

After the Liberation of Corsica, Léo Micheli does not lay down his arms. Mobilized, he left for Algiers, and within a regiment of North African skirmishers, crossed the Mediterranean again during the liberation of France.

In post-war France, for ten years, Léo Micheli lives, works, and breathes communist. He is called to Paris, becomes a national cadre of the PC, and teaches at the national school of the party.

The reason, the XXth Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. An event that triggers the process of destalinization of the party, following the report read by Nikita Khrushchev.

The French PC refuses to make this report public, which angered Léo Micheli. The latter publicly criticizes this decision, and Micheli leaves his responsibilities in the central committee of the Communist Party and in the secretariat of Jacques Duclot.

A very discreet hero

Distancing himself from public affairs, Léo Micheli worked for many years at Larousse, where he held a senior executive position.

Humble, and very discreet about the many heroic acts which have earned him decorations and recognition at the national level, Léo Micheli nevertheless agreed in 2012 to participate in the interview with Dominique Lanzalavi, who devoted a long and precious time to him. documentary, Code name: Leo, and a book, As a free man.

Etienne Micheli passed away at the age of 98. This century, he will have gone through it animated by an unfailing faith in the idea of ​​freedom. Without ever kneeling down.

It doesn’t matter what first name we give him.

Tributes provided among elected islanders

Since the announcement of his death, tributes have multiplied on the side of elected islanders.

“Etienne Micheli, Léo by his nom de guerre, has passed away. Entered the Resistance at the age of 16 in 1939, he was faithful all his life to the ideals of justice and freedom. His presence and his choices will continue to light our way. U pienghjimu. Cunduglianze afflicts i soii“, moved Gilles Simeoni, President of the Executive Council of Corsica, in a tweet.

Etienne Micheli, Léo by his nom de guerre, has passed away. Entered the Resistance at the age of 16 in 1939, he was faithful all his life to the ideals of justice and freedom. His presence and his choices will continue to light our way. U pienghjimu. Cunduglianze afflicts i soii. pic.twitter.com/s2rlzbhfra

– Gilles Simeoni (@Gilles_Simeoni) August 31, 2021

Michel Stefani, leader of the Corsican Communist Party, retraces, in a long letter, the journey of “a hero” intimately linked to the foundations of island communism. A message taken up by the French Communist Party, which honors in a statement posted on the evening of August 31 “the story of Léo, the nickname of Resident chosen in hiding, is closely intertwined with that of the beginnings of Bastia and island communism of which he was one of the main actors. ”

Disappearance of Etienne “Léo” Micheli: we are losing a great figure of the Resistance and the PCF @Fabien_Roussel https://t.co/1UfZcX52CU pic.twitter.com/Wp9l7SgNIK

– PCF (@PCF) August 31, 2021

“He is a very great figure of the Resistance and of the island left who is disappearing“, finally deplores Emile Zuccarelli, honorary president of the Radical Movement.”A man of courage, he was the youngest of those responsible for this resistance, the memory of which he will serve all his life, particularly in connection with Jean Nicoli. A man of loyalty, he had never renounced the ideals which had led him to the French Communist Party and won him the esteem of the entire Left.. ”

Léo Micheli, continues the former mayor of Bastia, “was also a man of culture who would have a brilliant career in publishing. Always on the go he had the honor of being chosen to speak on behalf of the Corsican resistance before the President of the Republic during the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Corsica. To his wife, his children and grandchildren we express our affectionate sympathy. “