Several thousand demonstrators protested on Sunday March 6 in the Corsican town of Corte, to denounce the violent attack on Yvan Colonna by one of his fellow prisoners, four days earlier in the prison of Arles (Bouches-du-Rhône) .

According to the prefecture, 4,200 people, 15,000 according to the organizers, marched behind banners "Glory to you Yvan" and "French State assassin", castigating the responsibility of the authorities in the attack which left the independence activist in a coma , sentenced to life for the assassination of the prefect Claude Érignac in Corsica.

Incidents erupted at the end of the demonstration, groups throwing projectiles and "agricultural bombs" (homemade bombs) on the police massed to protect access to the sub-prefecture.

The latter responded with water cannons and tear gas, found an AFP team.

Demonstrators and gendarmes injured

Firefighters counted 25 wounded among the demonstrators, including 15 hospitalized.

"There is no serious case, no vital prognosis involved, it is essentially sutures and shrapnel wounds", told AFP Christophe Hebert, chief doctor of the fire and rescue service ( Sdis) of Haute-Corse.

The gendarmes, for their part, counted four wounded in their ranks, hit by projectiles, and reported four arrests of demonstrators, including one armed with a knife.

By 6:30 p.m., all the demonstrators had dispersed and the incidents were over.

In a press release, the prefect of Haute-Corse condemns the violence committed and calls for it to stop.

According to the prefecture, demonstrators threatened to explode a gas cylinder near the gendarmes' device.

In Paris, Yvan Colonna's attacker, Franck Elong Abé, 35, was indicted on Sunday afternoon by investigating judges for "attempted assassination in connection with a terrorist enterprise" and placed in pre-trial detention as part of a judicial investigation also opened for "terrorist criminal association".  

Yvan Colonna victim of a "terrorist crime"

Franck Elong Abé, who was serving several sentences, including one of nine years for "criminal association with a view to preparing an act of terrorism", while in police custody, explained his act "by what he considered as blasphemy" uttered according to him in recent months by Yvan Colonna, indicated the national anti-terrorism prosecutor, Jean-François Ricard, to the press.

The Corsican activist is said to have declared, a few days before the attack, that he "spit on God", added the magistrate.  

Jean-François Ricard, underlined that "for the fifth time since 2016, it is in a penitentiary establishment that a terrorist crime was committed by the jihadists".

The facts committed at the Arles remand center (Bouches-du-Rhône), Wednesday, "demonstrate that this jihadist threat carried by people detained for acts of radicalized terrorism remains a major subject of concern", a-t -he indicates.

The investigation will endeavor to "retrace with the greatest meticulousness the course in detention" of the aggressor, "determine all of his contacts, particularly among people who share his ideology" and "clarify any interactions (...) likely to have played a role in the facts," said Jean-François Ricard.

Incarcerated in Arles, Smaïn Ait Ali Belkacem, former member of the Algerian Armed Islamic Group (GIA) sentenced to life for the attack at the Musée d'Orsay RER station in 1995 in Paris, was placed in police custody on Saturday, according to a source familiar with the matter.

It is a question of "knowing what he possibly knew of the project" of Franck Elong Abé, added this source, confirming information from the JDD.

attempted murder

Retracing the course of the attack, the prosecutor declared that "the systematic relentlessness deployed by the respondent" left "little doubt about his homicidal intent".

The assault took place in a gym where the two men were.

He "for more than eight minutes (...) struck the victim violently" and "implemented strangulation and suffocation techniques, including using garbage bags and towels", according to the prosecutor Richard.

The vital prognosis of Yvan Colonna is "always engaged", according to Jean-François Ricard.

His family, through his lawyer, Me Patrice Spinosi, regretted that justice had provided "no answer to the questions" that it was asking and had "not made any mention of the faults of supervision by the Administration penitentiary".

The President of the National Assembly, Richard Ferrand, said he was ready, on France 3, Sunday, for the creation of a parliamentary commission of inquiry into the aggression of Yvan Colonna.

Since this incident, several demonstrations have taken place in Corsica, in front of the prefectures.

With AFP

The summary of the

France 24 week invites you to come back to the news that marked the week

I subscribe

Take international news everywhere with you!

Download the France 24 app

google-play-badge_FR