The funeral of Corsican independence activist Yvan Colonna will take place on Friday in his family village of Cargèse in Corse-du-Sud. According to sources familiar with the matter, his body was to be repatriated on Wednesday evening. From calls to make a guard of honorwith candles and flags, between Ajaccio airport and the funeral home where he is to spend the night, circulate in Corsica.
Sentenced to life for the assassination of the prefect Claude Erignac in 1998, Yvan Colonna was violently attacked on March 2 in the sports hall of the prison of Arles, in the Bouches-du-Rhône, by a fellow prisoner who was serving a sentence for terrorism. After almost three weeks in a coma, this former shepherd died Monday evening at the age of 61 in a Marseille hospital.
His funeral will take place Friday at 3 p.m. in Cargèse, a village of some 1,300 inhabitants in western Corsica. No details have filtered at this stage on the course of the ceremony. One of the Corsican prisoner associations, Sulidarita, has asked for a “day of mourning” to be decreed in Corsica on Friday.
Flags at half mast: Emmanuel Macron denounces a “fault”
Since the announcement of the death of Yvan Colonna, meditation has prevailed on the island, contrasting with the scenes of violence which have marked the various demonstrations of support for the Corsican activist for nearly two weeks. Several vigils took place in the calm and the Community of Corsica has since Tuesday lowered its flags. An initiative that President Emmanuel Macron described on Wednesday as “mistake” during an interview with M6. “The decision of the Corsica community (…) seems to us to be very inappropriate in this context”said government spokesman Gabriel Attal.