Like the previous ones, the new demonstration for Yvan Colonna, a Corsican independence activist fatally attacked in prison, degenerated into violent clashes on Sunday in Ajaccio, at the risk of delaying the opening of the discussions announced with the government around a possible autonomy for the Isle. According to the prefecture, these clashes left 15 injured, 14 demonstrators and a policeman, including three seriously injured. Among them, a 54-year-old woman affected in one leg.
Started around 4 p.m., immediately after the arrival of the procession at the prefecture, these clashes between 150 to 200 young people, often hooded and equipped with gas masks, and the police, still continued around 11 p.m. Responding to the throwing of Molotov cocktails and agricultural bombs, the police replied with water lances, tear gas canisters and stun grenades. At the end of the evening, the demonstrators notably used electoral signs as projectiles.
Residents evacuated
At the end of the afternoon, while the most virulent clashes took place towards the town hall, the firefighters were mobilized for a long time around a geyser of flames springing from a gas pipe. Faced with the risk of explosion, around thirty inhabitants had to be evacuated, said the prefecture. Clashes were also noted at the end of the afternoon near the CRS barracks in Furiani, near Bastia, already the target of demonstrators a week ago, as well as in front of the Bastia prefecture in the evening. At the height of the day, this demonstration brought together 4,000 people according to the prefecture, 14,000 according to the organizers.
At the gates of the prefecture, a white sheet bearing the face of Yvan Colonna in stencil had been hung by demonstrators, accompanied by two sentences: “We are going to wake up” and “I have confidence”. According to a video broadcast by BFMTV last week, these words were spoken in January by the nationalist activist, in a discussion with a fellow Basque prisoner to whom he expressed his belief that Corsica would one day be independent.
The demonstration had started around 3:00 p.m., on the seafront, behind two large banners bearing the now traditional slogan “French state assassin”. The procession was led by Stéphane Colonna, Yvan’s brother, and his eldest son, surrounded by very young demonstrators, children for some, who repeated in chorus this same cry of “French State assassin”.
Emmanuel Macron deemed this violence “unacceptable”
Faced with the risk of overflows, the police force was more important on Sunday, better organized and more offensive. Preventive checks before the demonstration notably enabled the seizure of several dozen projectiles, including petanque balls, hatchets and iron bars.
Emmanuel Macron deemed this violence “unacceptable” on Monday 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 clashes during a demonstration for Yvan Colonna, the murderer of the prefect Erignac fatally attacked in prison by another prisoner.
According to Emmanuel Macron, the assassination of Yvan Colonna in prison is “serious and unacceptable”, but the latter “is not a hero” because “he was condemned several times” 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, while the Minister of the Interior Gérald Darmanin had undertaken to open negotiations this week on “the all of the Corsican issues”, including “the institutional evolution towards a status of autonomy still to be clarified”. “There will be no discussion with people who behave like this,” said Emmanuel Macron.