After the abortive intrusion attempt, Friday March 11, in the gendarmerie of Porto-Vecchio, andix days after the attack on Yvan Colonna in prison, where he was serving his sentence for the assassination of the prefect Erignac, there were many demonstrations in Corsica, sometimes with clashes. A large rally is scheduled for Sunday March 13 in Bastia. Corsicans condemn the action of the State in this file: a culpable lack of vigilance, according to them, which allowed a jihadist detainee to attack the independence activist, who is today in a desperate state. .
franceinfo: What do you think this mobilization on the Corsican island says? At this moment, we can even speak of a movement of anger. How can we explain it?
John Viard: The first thing is that it is absolutely scandalous that one inmate is massacred by another, and that for 9 minutes, no one notices. There is a real scandal on this question, at the time when there was a debate on the three condemned of the trials of the assassination of the prefect so that they are repatriated to Corsica. And it’s been dragging on for a while with discussions with the government, etc., and it’s not going very well. We must delve into who Yvan Colonna is.
There have been two great periods in the history of Corsica. Obviously, the 18th century, with the Republic of Pascal Paoli. It is the first republic in the world. This is the first time that women have been given the right to vote. The Corsicans are extremely proud of it, but it is also, in the 18th century, the moment when France had to intervene four times militarily in Corsica, even before Corsica was French. There will be more deaths in the conquest of Corsica by France, than in the conquest of Algeria. The 18th century was horribly bloody in Corsica, until there was this republic; France brings it down and Corsica becomes French. That’s the “old” story.
And the modern story – and there, Yvan Colonna embodies it well – is that in the 1960s, there was the “Living and working in the country” movement which developed in France, Brittany, Corsica, etc. , and which, everywhere, is recovered by the left. And suddenly, we can see it well in Occitania, in Corsica, the regionalist militants are integrated. So basically, there is no confrontation. But Corsica is managed by a very clientelist, very reactionary right, which refuses any link. And so, this movement will grow. Yvan Colonna, the shepherd of Cargèse, is in fact the son of a socialist deputy, he is someone on the left. Just like Peter Pioggioli who will create the FLNC in 1976, who also comes from the left. So there is a confrontation there, these people have not found a political space and they are going to join these movements. Until Lionel Jospin – still a leftist – changed the status of Corsica in 1992. And since then, the nationalists and the separatists, in fact, are in the majority in the Council of Corsica. But they did not obtain, like Sardinia or Sicily, a real autonomous status. All this explains a story that never ends.
We never manage to say that there is a Corsican people when everyone knows it. There is, basically, an island that is not respected and a French state that wants to apply the same rules everywhere. The young people there are moved because we are all moved at the moment. Their “leader” killed a man, but he also killed a symbol. The man, of course, is completely indefensible, but attacking the symbol can locally be perceived positively. All of this makes it extremely explosive.
When we look at the composition of the assembly of Corsica, elected by direct universal suffrage, we see that it is very largely composed today of autonomists and nationalists. You, what you are telling us is that the State must go further in the power it confers on local executives in Corsica?
I think so. That’s why I compare Corsica to Sardinia to Sicily, it’s always interesting to see the other two islands, with the way Italy manages them with much greater autonomy. And there are no complicated movements of the same nature, whereas there could be, especially in Sardinia. And this is also true for the Balearic Islands as well. I think other Mediterranean governments have had much more welcoming policies.
It’s complicated because there is also a link with profiteering. In Corsica, we remember the stories of chambers of commerce. All of this worries the State, but in the imagination of the populations, we must also remember that the crisis started at the end of the Algerian war, when we repatriated some of the Pieds-Noirs in the agricultural land in Corsica. The Corsicans felt robbed. And then afterwards, we made a tourism policy, they had the impression that we did not respect their identity. I think we have to go further. I think we need to give Corsica a lot more autonomy. I think you have to recognize that there is a Corsican people – it doesn’t matter, there is a French people and a Corsican people. And I think that on this, the Republic has to think a little bit towards the future, and not with the past.