In France, nine days after the attack on Yvan Colonna in prison, Jean Castex lifted this Friday morning the status of “particularly reported detainee” (DPS) for Alain Ferrandi and Pierre Alessandri, two members of the “Erignac commando”. A decision by the Prime Minister taken “in a spirit of appeasement” while Corsica is shaken by sometimes violent demonstrations since the aggression. The measure applies “without delay” specifies Matignon. The opportunity to take stock of this DPS status and what its lifting can change.
The status of “particularly reported detainee” has existed since 1970 and concerns around 350 people out of the 70,000 people imprisoned in France according to figures from the Ministry of Justice in 2019.
It involves reinforced and more frequent monitoring of the detainee and his behavior in detention, his correspondence, his telephone exchanges, with the possibility of reinforcing the escorts for his movements outside. This is to avoid any violent incident in incarceration and of course to prevent any attempt to escape, explains Eric Chaurin of the Company department.
The robber and king of the escape, Redoine Faïd, is inscribed therein. But in the case of Yvan Colonna, Alain Ferrandi and Pierre Alessandri, this status had another consequence: it prevented their transfer to Corsica where the only prison likely to receive long sentences, in Borgho, is not equipped to accommodate such prisoners.
► Read also : Assassination of the prefect Erignac: a member of the commando exonerates Yvan Colonna
What in Corsica, and in the nationalist movements, is regularly denounced as a political decision relating to “State revenge” against the assassins of the prefect Erignac…
The lifting of this DPS status, with immediate effect, therefore opens the way to a rapprochement in Corsica between Alain Ferrandi and Pierre Alessandri.
► Also to listen : Anger in Corsica after the aggression of Colonna: “They are in a colonial struggle”
Why this decision today?
Because the aggression of Yvan Colonna changed everything in Corsica, arousing enormous emotion. We follow day by dayevolution of Yvan Colonna’s state of healthstill between life and death, in a hospital in Marseille.
And demonstrations such as we had not seen for a long time on the island have followed one another for a week at the call of students, high school students, nationalist organizations or trade unions, denouncing “the murderous French state”.
It even went up a notch in the night from Wednesday to Thursday, described as a “night of riots” by the authorities, with violent clashes between certain demonstrators and the police in Calvi, Ajaccio or even Bastia…
And there is of course the fear that the conflict will become long-lasting and degenerate as the elections approach… And this despite calls for calm from political leaders, starting with the regional president… the separatist Gilles Simeoni.
Will this announcement by Jean Castex help to appease the spirits in Corsica?
This decision to lift their DPS detainee status responds in any case to one of the main demands of the demonstrators. And it was hailed as “a positive sign” but insufficient by some nationalists.
A rapid rapprochement between Ferrandi and Alessandri in Corsica, at the Borgo prison, would undoubtedly be more concrete to ease the pressure on the island where the lifting of DPS status for Yvan Colonna on Tuesday while he was in the coma, had been experienced as a real provocation…
The result of the investigation into the assault he suffered from another DPS inmate is another claim. The executives of the prison administration will be auditioned next Wednesday.
Difficult to say at this time if the announcement of the day of Jean Castex will have an immediate effect. And in particular on the demonstrations already planned… A rally must take place in front of the prefecture in Ajaccio this Friday evening.
And the Association for the Defense of Corsican Political Prisoners, Associe Sulidarita, always calls to come to the big regional demonstration which is to take place in Bastia on Sunday and which makes the authorities fear the worst…