"The hearings will focus in particular on the conditions of surveillance and the prison situation of Mr. Yvan Colonna, as well as on the course of detention of his attacker, Mr. Franck Elong Abe", wrote the Law Commission of the National Assembly in a statement.

The hearings of the director of the prison administration, Laurent Ridel, as well as the former director of the Central House of Arles and its current leader are already scheduled for next week.

"Other hearings may follow," said the Law Commission chaired by Yaël Braun-Pivet (LREM).

The attempted assassination of which Yvan Colonna was the victim on March 2 at the Arles (Bouches-du-Rhône) power station by another detainee, convicted of acts of terrorism, aroused a wave of emotion and anger in Corsica.

The autonomist president of the Corsican executive council, Gilles Simeoni, asked, with the president of the Assembly of Corsica, the creation of a parliamentary commission of inquiry into the "particularly disturbing" violent attack perpetrated against Yvan Colonna in the prison where he was serving his sentence for the assassination of the prefect of Corsica Claude Erignac in 1998.

During the program Dimanche en politique on France 3, the President of the National Assembly Richard Ferrand (LREM) recalled that such a commission could not "overlap" or "replace a judicial inquiry".

But "if necessary, the National Assembly, as soon as it resumes its work, that is to say in June", may "decide to create a commission of inquiry", he said. he declares.

“We take note with a start of satisfaction from these hearings”, commented to AFP the Corsican nationalist deputy Jean-Félix Acquaviva (Freedoms and Territories), also a member of the Law Commission.

"But we hope with deputies from other parliamentary groups that all the administrative but also political protagonists can be invited to these hearings", he added.

According to Mr. Acquaviva, it is a question of "unfolding the facts but also their genesis which is the stubborn refusal to lift the status of DPS (particularly guarded prisoner)".

"The family intends that the prison administration assume its share of responsibility in the occurrence of this tragedy", declared Tuesday in a press release the lawyers of Yvan Colonna and his relatives, who are civil parties in the criminal investigation.

Photo of Yvan Colonna taken on July 4, 2003 after his arrest in Corsica for the assassination of the prefect Erignac - ARCHIVES/AFP/Archives

“What is the real motive? Did the attacker have accomplices? How long had this crime been planned?”, they wonder.

Deputies from all sides have for several weeks actively campaigned for the lifting of this status and the rapprochement in Corsica of the three prisoners convicted in the case of the assassination of the prefect Erignac.

© 2022 AFP