The Paris Court of Appeal has again rejected a request for an adjustment of the sentence of Pierre Alessandri, sentenced to life in 2003 for the assassination of the prefect Claude Erignac, announced this Thursday, September 29 the general prosecutor’s office. In “sign of solemn indignation”, the Conference of Presidents of the Assembly of Corsica has suspended their current session. They call this court decision “unjust and incomprehensible”. For the President of the Assembly of Corsica, she also does “weigh a very heavy mortgage” on the discussion process initiated with Paris on the future of the island.
The argument of disturbing public order put forward to justify the refusal of Pierre Alessandri’s sentence adjustment is widely denounced in the press release of the Conference of Presidents of the Assembly of Corsica. Corsican elected officials consider, on the contrary, “that the maintenance in detention of Pierre Alessandri like that of Alain Ferrandi could generate such trouble” and that this decision “contravenes the logic of appeasement which conditions the smooth running and success of the negotiation process undertaken between Corsica and the State”.
The President of the Assembly of Corsica, insists: “The government must recreate the conditions for dialogue and serenity to give this peace process a chance. It is essential.” Although always in favor of discussion and exchange, Marie-Antoinette Maupertuis believes that the court decision taken “creates an unfavorable context for dialogue”. As a result, discussions will continue “once the government has provided elements of clarification and shows strong signs of dialogue and the building of mutual trust”she concludes.
What to say to young people?
Even if she “Ask all young people to keep calm”the President of the Assembly wonders about the words to be found for this generation. “It is becoming difficult to find words to explain to this youth that, yes there is a future, yes we must project ourselves, yes we can turn the page, yes we must reach out”underlines Marie-Antoinette Maupertuis, reaffirming “the injustice” of the decision taken by the Paris Court of Appeal.
Core in Fronte suspends its participation in the dialogue
A few hours before the Assembly’s decision to suspend the current session, Core in Fronte announced that it was suspending, “for the time being, its participation in the current dialogue with the State”. The political movement believes that this rejection is a “new provocation” and that is not “not a court decision that has been rendered but a State decision instrumentalized by the Public Prosecutor’s Office”. In a tweet, party leader Paul-Félix Benedetti believes that “the French State continues to apply its revenge”.
For his part, the president of the Avanzemu group Jean-Christophe Angelini believes that there can be no way out of the crisis without the question of political prisoners being settled. The Corsica Libera party is asking, through the voice of Josepha Giacometti, now unregistered, “a balance of political power”.
Incarcerated since 1999
Like Alain Ferrandi, another member of the commando sentenced to life imprisonment for the assassination of the prefect Erignac, Pierre Alessandri has been imprisoned since 1999. After years of calling for their rapprochement in Corsica, they were transferred to Borgo prison on April 11after the lifting of their status as “particularly flagged detainees”.
On May 12, Pierre Alessandri had obtained a probationary semi-freedom measure for conditional release, but the National Anti-Terrorist Prosecutor’s Office (Pnat) had appealed. This was the third request for sentence adjustment in semi-freedom filed by Pierre Alessandri, now 64 years old and releasable since 2017. The court for the application of anti-terrorism sentences had given the green light, in October 2019, July 2021 and May 2022, each time overturned by the court of appeal after a suspensive appeal by the Pnat.