Corsica: meeting between government and local elected representatives postponed after violence of Sunday

A new event, including Gilles Simeoni, the Autonomist President of the Corsica Executive Board, took place Sunday afternoon in Ajaccio. She degenerated in violent clashes.

Le Monde

The meeting envisaged on April 8 in Paris between elected corses and government on the institutional future of the island is postponed because of the violence occurred on Sunday during the manifestation of support to the family of Yvan Colonna, learned Le Monde with the Ministry of the Interior.

The entourage of the Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, explained that “the conditions of a standardized dialogue were not met”. A letter to Gilles Simeoni was sent to Gilles Simeoni, President Executive Council of Corsica. “These events are unacceptable, both for democracy, who can not be complacent with violence, that for the corsisses themselves, who disapproves them,” added the department.

During his visit to Corsica, from March 16 to 18, the Minister of the Interior had committed to open “from the first week of April” negotiations on “all Corsican problems” , including “the institutional evolution towards a status of autonomy remaining to be specified”. The date of April 8 in Paris was announced by Gilles Simeoni, the senior official of the Executive Board of Corsica but never confirmed by the Ministry of the Interior.

m. Darmanin had also promised the “prompt rapprochement in Corsica, in the coming weeks, of Pierre Alessandri and Alain Ferrandi, the latest members of the” Commando Erignac “still incarcerated. The two men, incarcerated in Poissy (Yvelines), signed on Friday their order of transfer to Borgo Prison.

Gilles Simeoni present at the event in Ajaccio

A new event, which was participating in Simeoni in particular on Sunday afternoon in Ajaccio. It has degenerated in violent clashes between 150 to 200 young people, often cagolds and equipped with gas masks, and the police, while clashes also occurred near Bastia.

According to the Ministry of the Interior, “Forty-three actions or events took place in the last two weeks, almost all enamelled with violent overflows, in the presence of elected officials, however, supposed to participate in the discussions planned in Paris”. “In total, adds the department to the world, they are nearly 59 wounded, both among the police and the protesters, who have not been the subject of any public conviction.”

Unacceptable violence according to Emmanuel Macron

“There will be no discussion with people who behave like that,” had warned Emmanuel Macron, a little earlier on France Inter. “What I saw this weekend is unacceptable, including politicians at the top of the procession,” he said Monday morning.

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 sentenced several times” and was “the cowardly assassin Prefect Erignac “in 1998.

“The Republic can not accept that an inmate be thus shot in these conditions by another inmate, and that is why I will take very clear measures on the basis of the reports and all the facts which will be given, “he added. But “the return to order is a prerequisite for all things,” warned the head of state, while Gérald Darmanin had committed to open negotiations on this week “all Corsican problems”, whose institutional evolution towards a status of autonomy remaining to be specified “.

“I am in favor of any evolution if it meets the needs of the population. That’s why I always said” there is no taboo “” but “autonomy is not Independence “and” is not an objective in itself, “he stressed.

/Media reports.