Macron “thinks of the family of the prefect Erignac”

COLONNA. Yvan Colonna died on the evening of March 21. In the aftermath of the death, while the government fears riots, it is above all the political reactions which multiply, Emmanuel Macron assuring that his thoughts go to “the family of Yvan Colonna” as well as “that of the prefect Erignac ” .

In a coma for three weeks, Yvan Colonna finally succumbed to his injuries. Several sources, including the prisoner’s family, announced the death of the Corsican separatist on the evening of Monday March 21, 2022 at the hospital in Marseille, three weeks after his attack in the prison of Arles. After confirming the death of Yvan Colonna, the lawyers for the man and his family called for respect for the mourning of the relatives. “The time is for meditation and in a second time, the responsibilities that appear evident will have to be assumed by those concerned. […] In a few days we will resume the legal actions that we have initiated”, indicated Emmanuel Mercinier-Pantalacci, lawyer for Yvan Colonna, on France info the day after the death of the assassin of the prefect Erignac. The magistrate refers to the “particularly flagged prisoner status which has been maintained” for Yvan Colonna and for which he considers the French government responsible and to “the prohibition which was imposed on Yvan Colonna from serving his sentence near his home, contrary to what the law provides.” If Emmanuel Macron directs his thoughts to the relatives of Yvan Colonna, he does not forget either “the family of the prefect Erignac”, as he indicated at the microphone of Ma France (France Bleu). In addition, the most important thing in the current context is according to him that “the discussions are maintained”.

The transfer of Yvan Colonna to Borgo prison on the Isle of Beauty was a long-standing request and the relatives of the deceased assure today that if the man had been transferred he would not have been attacked. Since March 2, 2022 and the aggression of Yvan Colonna, the riots of nationalists and separatists have multiplied causing numerous excesses in Corsica and the death of the prisoner raises fears of new virulent demonstrations on the island. guest ofEuropean 1 Tuesday, March 22, government spokesman Gabriel Attal called for “calm and dialogue” promising that “all the light will be shed on the sequence that led to this situation which is not acceptable”. The member of the government presented his condolences to the family of Yvan Colonna and ensures that all means are implemented to obtain the end of the story: a judicial inquiry was opened on March 3 by the national anti-terrorist prosecution and Parliament also took up the case with hearings. Gabriel Attal does not exclude the hypothesis of a flaw in the prison system denouncing a “serious dysfunction”. The government has already tried to calm the situation and the clashes in Corsica with the trip of the Minister of the Interior to the Island of Beauty at the end of the week, Gérald Darmanin then opened the dialogue on the autonomy of the region.

Yvan Colonna, who was found guilty of the 1998 murder of the prefect of Corse-du-Sud, Claude Érignac, had been serving his sentence in prison since 2003 when he was violently attacked by another prisoner , on March 2, at Arles prison. Announced dead for a time, he was actually in a post-anoxic coma, following oxygen deprivation in the brain, as one of his lawyers, Me Emmanuel Mercinier-Pantalacci, had indicated. Admitted to the North hospital in Marseille, the one who is regularly called in Corsica the “shepherd of Cargèse” was therefore in a worrying state. A situation which had led the courts to grant him, Thursday, March 17, a suspension of sentence “for medical reasons”. The Corsican nationalist activist finally died at the age of 61.

As soon as the death of Yvan Colonna was announced on the evening of Monday March 21, the reactions multiplied, with many personalities who presented their “condolences to his family”, like Marie-Antoinette Maupertuis, president autonomist of the assembly of Corsica. But in Corsica, the farewell messages reserved for the Corsican independence activist are above all focused on the symbol that he has become for the island: a banner of independence, a man “died for Corsica”, such as the posted Core in fronte, the main independence party. To mark the occasion, the party even accompanied its message with a black and white photo of the activist who said “To you the embrace of this earth”. The Femu a Corsica party, for its part, reacted with a tweet in the Corsican language: “Yvan Colonna, Corsican patriot, alive and well for eternity!”. This emotion spread as far as Spain, where other separatists, the Catalans and the Basques, recalled what united them to the Corsican destiny: thus, the National Assembly of Catalonia presents its condolences “to the whole Corsican independence movement”, without forgetting to renew its “support for protest mobilizations”, while the Basque party Sortu writes: “Two peoples, one fight. Solidarity and condolences”. Apart from a few banners struck with the slogan “French State assassin” and the tweets of the association for the defense of Corsican political prisoners, Sulidarita who chanted “Woe to this French State assassin”, no riots or outbursts were reported on the island on 21 in the evening. This is the time for contemplation… And for political reactions.

Twitter account of the Sortu party: “Corsican political prisoner Yvan Colonna was killed after being assaulted by another prisoner. Condolences to his family, friends and the national liberation movement in Corsica. This death could have been avoided. Politics prison of the French State kills”.

The day after the death of Yvan Colonna, Emmanuel Macron calls for “calm and responsibility in Corsica and remains neutral by declaring that he has a thought “for the family of the independence activist” as much as for “that of the prefect Erignac”. his passage on Ma France (France Bleu), he was especially alarmed that “such gestures” are “committed in our prisons”, before recalling that the objective was that “the discussions are maintained, that they continue and that we can all be attached to Corsicans living better.” If he remained somewhat evasive about the current political context of the island, for many politicians and parties, on the other hand, reacting to this death is an opportunity to recall their position vis-à-vis the Corsican situation. For the deputies of LFI, for example, the important thing was to ensure that this tragic event would not have happened under their responsibility, as illustrated the tweet of deputy Eric Coquerel: “If, as requested with at deputies, he had benefited from a rapprochement, this tragedy would never have happened.”, or that of another member of the party, Ugo Bernacilis, who believes that this death “signs a failure of our justice and of this government” . This last sentence was taken up on the far right of the political spectrum, by none other than the spokesperson for the RN, Jordan Bardella who, if he says “not having sympathy for Yvan Colonna”, also believes that the fault lies with French justice, which did not take into account the threat posed by the assassin of Yvan Colonna, a “dangerous jihadist”, as he hammered it during his appearance on the program Les 4 truths from France TV. He added that this breach “should lead to the immediate resignation of Eric Dupond-Moretti”, the Keeper of the Seals.

Conversely, for the former Prime Minister Manuel Valls, the main thing was to support the “figures of the Republic”: this is how, invited on RMC, he compared the prefect Claude Erignac to the teacher Samuel Paty. Some have taken a middle path, like Valérie Pécresse who declared on CNews: “It’s a tragedy, and I call for keeping calm and composure and not setting Corsica ablaze”. For the one who said she was considering the “autonomy” of the region, the most important thing was that the Corsicans remain in “calm and restraint” on the evening of the 21st. While still others saw it as an opportunity to praise their party’s program, like Gilbert Collard, a fervent supporter of Eric Zemmour: “Yvan Colonna is dead. His assassin is a jihadist born in Cameroon: This type of individual should have returned to his country a long time ago, which would have been the case if the “ministry of remigration” proposed by Eric Zemmour was in place!”.

Yvan Colonna violently attacked in prison

On Wednesday March 3, in the morning, Yvan Colonna, imprisoned in Arles since 2013, was violently attacked by another detainee. It is during a sports session, in the weight room of the penitentiary center ahead Le Figaro, that Yvan Colonna was attacked and strangled by a man, for reasons that have not yet been determined. The Corsican was alone in the room, performing a physical exercise session, when another inmate entered the room to clean it, according to the account of the World. The sixty-year-old was, it seems, strangled and suffocated with a plastic bag after being trampled and beaten by this fellow prisoner. He was quickly transferred to hospital in Arles at the end of the morning, admitted to intensive care and placed on a respirator. His vital prognosis was also engaged as soon as he arrived at the hospital. He was then transferred to the Marseille side.

Who is Yvan Colonna’s attacker?

According to several media, Yvan Colonna was attacked by Franck Elong-Abé, a detainee of Cameroonian nationality, convicted of criminal association with a view to preparing an act of terrorism and a former jihadist in Afghanistan. France 3 Corse specifies that he is a 36-year-old man, known for Islamist radicalization. Before being imprisoned in Arles, Franck Elong-Abé was in Condé-sur-Sarthe (Orne), in a prison where he was sentenced multiple times for several incidents, including a hostage-taking in 2019 and a burning of his cell.

Yvan Colonna condemned for the assassination of the prefect Claude Erignac

On February 6, 1998, the prefect of Claude Erignac was shot in the back with three 9mm caliber bullets, fired by a man from a pistol stolen from the gendarmes a few months earlier. Denounced by the people with whom he had co-organized his murderous enterprise, Yvan Colonna fled and was on the run until July 4, 2003, when he was arrested. After a trial at first instance, an appeal and an appeal in cassation, Yvan Colonna is definitively condemned for “murder in connection with a terrorist enterprise”. He has always refuted the accusations made against him.