House of elected or town halls burned: in Corsica, after a multiplication of fires of second homes, clandestine independence groups are now attacking elected islanders, arousing misunderstanding, but without formal condemnation of elected nationalists.
Latest episode, Monday morning, the family home of Simone Guerrini, deputy LR senator of Corse-du-Sud Jean-Jacques Panunzi and cultural assistant to the mayor (DVD) of Ajaccio, was badly damaged by a arson in Ajaccio.
Tags “GCC”, for Gjhuventu clandestina corsa (“Clandestine Corsican youth”), an underground group which announced its creation in early February, and “Speculatori Fora” (speculation outside, editor’s note) were inscribed on the facade.
This same group had claimed responsibility for the arson of the town halls of Afa and Appietto, on the outskirts of Ajaccio, at the end of March. “We warn (…) the elected officials taking advantage of the wealth of the island for their benefit and only theirs”, declared then this mysterious group in a press release.
A new text, sent to Corse-Matin on Tuesday, reinforced the confusion by ensuring that this previous press release of March 30 was the work of “usurpers”.
This cacophony led the Corsican Human Rights League to “worry about the risk of rivalry between clandestine organisations”, a phenomenon which, in the 1990s, had led the nationalists to tear themselves apart in a fratricidal struggle, with a twenty deaths within the various clandestine movements.
“We believe that there are several small groups” acting “a bit like franchisees, with specific geographical sectors,” a source close to the investigation told AFP.
The new text signed GCC transmitted Tuesday, but undated, does not mention the fire at the house of the right-wing elected Ajaccian, but on the other hand claims the fires of the town halls, explaining that these acts aim to “attack(er) directly the State and the elected nationalists who failed to keep their promises”.
Problem, the targeted mayors are not nationalists, which raises questions about the chosen targets. Are they the result of mistakes, personal score settling or real political actions?
Ms. Guerrini’s house “has been in the possession of this family for 40 years. There is no speculation,” also recalled Horizons MP Laurent Marcangeli, former mayor of Ajaccio.
“If the fight is aimed at real estate speculation, as they claim in their tags and press releases, it is surprising to see certain municipalities, where construction is going at a frantic pace, being spared”, slips to AFP an investigator, in also noting that real estate developers associated, directly or indirectly, with criminal gangs, have not been affected.
The mayor of Appietto, François Faggianelli, was indignant at one of the tags on his town hall, “Béton Bast” (“stop concrete” in Corsica, editor’s note): “the town has granted two permits (to build) in 2020 and only one in 2021, everything else was refused,” he told AFP.
Manager of a construction company, Mr. Faggianelli had already seen two mechanical shovels of his company set on fire in December on a construction site in Alata, a neighboring village, with the inscriptions “Béton Basta”, “IFF” (I Francesi Fora, ” the French outside”, editor’s note) and “GCC”.
A popular rally was then organized in support of this Corsican craftsman who assured that he had “never encountered this type of problem, neither as a promoter nor as an elected official. I have no worries either with my competitors”.
If the support for the mayors was unanimous, the condemnation of the facts was not.
The nationalist groups – autonomists and separatists – thus abstained from voting in the Assembly of Corsica for a solemn resolution by the right-wing group Un Soffiu Novu which condemned these facts. The autonomist executive then presented its own resolution, supporting the targeted mayors, without condemning the acts.
On Wednesday, the anti-mafia collective “A Maffia No, A Vita ié” called on “the GCC and the National Liberation Front of Corsica (FLNC) to abandon violence that plays into the hands of the mafia”, hoping for a “strengthening of the citizen mobilization.
04/14/2023 17:58:03 – Ajaccio (AFP) – © 2023 AFP
