The French government called for calm on Tuesday after the death of the jailed Corsican nationalist Yvan Colonna raised fears of fresh violence on the island.
Colonna was attacked on 2 March by a fellow inmate in a prison in southern France, where he was being held over the assassination in 1998 of a senior French government official.
The incident stoked anger and the worst clashes for years on the island of Corsica, where some still see Colonna, whose death was announced late on Monday, as a hero in a fight for independence.
“We need now to call for calm and for dialogue,” a French government spokesperson, Gabriel Attal, told Europe 1 radio on Tuesday. “Everything will be done to shed light on events which led to this unacceptable situation.”
One of France’s most prominent prisoners, 61-year-old Colonna was left in a coma after being attacked in prison in Arles by a suspected Islamic extremist who was serving time for terror offences.
Colonna’s lawyer, Patrice Spinosi, said on Monday: “The family requests that its grief is respected and will be making no comment.” He confirmed that his client had died in hospital in Marseille from his injuries.
In an attempt to dampen local anger over the assault, the French judiciary on 17 March suspended Colonna’s prison sentence for medical reasons. A criminal probe and an internal prison inquiry have been opened into the assault.
In a surprise move just a month before the presidential election, France’s interior minister, Gérald Darmanin, announced in a newspaper interview last week that the government could be prepared to offer Corsica autonomy.
President Emmanuel Macron said the issue should not be a “taboo” subject but added that there must be an end to the unrest before a discussion could begin. “It is a debate that cannot take place until there is absolute calm,” he said last Thursday.
Colonna was arrested in 2003 after a five-year manhunt that eventually found him living as a shepherd in the Corsican mountains. He was then sentenced to life in prison for the assassination of Corsica’s top regional official, Claude Erignac.
Darmanin’s comments last week and subsequent visit to Corsica helped to ease tensions and it remains to be seen how nationalists will react to Colonna’s death. His supporters had long called for his release or at least a transfer from mainland France to a prison in Corsica.
The leader of Corsica’s pro-autonomy regional council, Gilles Simeoni, said Darmanin’s proposals were “important words that open up prospects, but they ought now to be extended and firmed up”.
The National Liberation Front of Corsica (FLNC), which carried out deadly attacks for decades before laying down its arms in 2014, said this month it could resume its fight if Paris remained in a state of “contemptuous denial”.
Corsica, the birthplace of Napoleon Bonaparte, has become a favourite of well-heeled French tourists with its unspoilt beaches but has also been mired in internal problems. Many Corsicans are frustrated that a reform of the island’s status has been on ice since 2018. Many are demanding increased control over fiscal policy and hiring policies, and the expanded use of the Corsican language.
The debate on the issue has intensified at a hugely sensitive moment, with France preparing for a presidential election in April and the right warning Macron not to give an inch on the island’s French identity.
Talks on autonomy for Corsica will begin in April and should be wrapped up by the end of this year, according to a memorandum agreed by Darmanin and Simeoni.
Attal underlined the government’s “red lines” on Tuesday: that “Corsica remains a part of the republic and the fact that we will never accept that there are two categories of people in the republic”.
Colonna’s assailant, Franck Elong Abé, who had been jailed for terrorism-related offences, has been charged with another terrorist offence for the attack on Colonna. Prosecutors have said he attacked his fellow inmate after being angered by his “blaspheming” and alleged mocking of the prophet Mohammed.
Investigators said Abé attacked Colonna while he was working out in the prison gym by pulling a bag over his head and strangling him.
