{"id":30276,"date":"2026-01-18T04:01:12","date_gmt":"2026-01-18T09:01:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/?p=30276"},"modified":"2026-01-18T04:01:12","modified_gmt":"2026-01-18T09:01:12","slug":"gangland-killing-at-a-funeral-shocks-idyllic-french-island","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/2026\/01\/18\/gangland-killing-at-a-funeral-shocks-idyllic-french-island\/","title":{"rendered":"Gangland killing at a funeral shocks idyllic French island"},"content":{"rendered":"

The mourners had gathered in the small village of Vero, a half-hour drive from Ajaccio, the capital of the picture-postcard Mediterranean island of Corsica.<\/b><\/p>\n

In their midst was former nationalist leader Alain Orsoni, 71, who had flown in from exile in Nicaragua to bury his mother. Suddenly, with the ceremony under way, a single shot was fired from nearby scrubland, killing Orsoni instantly.<\/p>\n

Thirty-five people have been fatally shot on this island of 350,000 people in the past three years alone, giving it one of France’s highest murder rates. Corsicans have become wearily familiar with vendettas and tit-for-tat underworld shootings, but even here, the way Orsoni was killed has stunned islanders.<\/p>\n

Yesterday, Alain Orsoni was cremated after a funeral service in Ajaccio. There was a large police presence.<\/p>\n

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Close friend Jo Peraldi finds it hard to believe that a day of high emotion surrounding the funeral of Orsoni’s mother could have been defiled in such a way.<\/p>\n

“A cemetery is sacred in Corsica, just like a church. Never have I witnessed seeing someone murdered while accompanying their mother to their final resting place,” he told Corsican radio.<\/p>\n

Peraldi had seen his friend on the morning of the funeral. Like Orsoni, he had been an active figure in Corsican nationalism, spending 15 years in jail for organising bomb attacks against symbols of the French state.<\/p>\n

Over the years, victims of Corsica’s violence have included farmers, elected officials, a lawyer, local business owners and even the president of the chamber of commerce.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\"French<\/picture><\/span>In this killing in 2012, a chamber of commerce leader Jacques Nacer was killed as he locked up his clothes shop (Image: AFP)<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
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But for a cousin of the victim, Christian Leca, Orsoni’s killing was “a tipping point in the horror”.<\/p>\n

“People don’t kill in cemeteries, it’s intolerable,” he told Le Monde newspaper.<\/p>\n

The nature of the violence has changed in recent times, says Thierry Dominici, an expert of Corsican nationalism at the University of Bordeaux who grew up on the island.<\/p>\n

“Once armed groups gave up their violent campaign for autonomy or independence, they kept their weapons and turned to organised crime instead,” he told the BBC. “The French state was so focused on tackling the separatists that it turned a blind eye to their lucrative criminal activities.”<\/p>\n

But he believes there is a significant difference between Corsica’s organised crime and the role of the mafia in parts of southern Italy.<\/p>\n

“In Corsica the clans are not linked by family ties or rituals of lifelong loyalty, but by simple opportunism,” Dominici says.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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