Gangland killing at a funeral shocks idyllic French island

Mourners had gathered in the tiny village of Vero, a half-hour drive from Ajaccio, the capital of the picture-postcard Mediterranean island of Corsica.

Among them was Alain Orsoni, the 71-year-old former nationalist leader who flew in from exile in Nicaragua to bury his mother. Suddenly, while the ceremony was in progress, a single shot was fired from nearby bushes, killing Orsoni instantly.

In the last three years alone, 35 people have been fatally shot on this island of 350,000 people; This shows that the island has one of the highest murder rates in France. Corsicans have become wearily familiar with underworld feuds and tit-for-tat shootings, but even here the manner in which Orsoni was killed stunned the islanders.

Alain Orsoni was cremated after the funeral ceremony held in Ajaccio yesterday. There was a large police presence.

Close friend Jo Peraldi finds it hard to believe that a day filled with intense emotions during Orsoni’s mother’s funeral could have been tainted in this way.

“In Corsica, a cemetery is sacred, just like a church. I have never witnessed someone killed while escorting his mother to her eternal resting place,” he told Corsican radio.

Peraldi had seen his friend the morning of the funeral. Like Orsoni, he was an active figure in Corsican nationalism and spent 15 years in prison for organizing bomb attacks against symbols of the French state.

Over the years, victims of violence in Corsica have included farmers, elected officials, a lawyer, local business owners and even the president of the chamber of commerce.

But for Christian Leca, the victim’s cousin, Orsoni’s murder marked “a turning point in horror.”

“People don’t commit murder in cemeteries, this is unacceptable,” he told Le Monde newspaper.

Thierry Dominici, an expert on Corsican nationalism at the University of Bordeaux who grew up on the island, says the nature of the violence has changed recently.

“When armed groups abandoned their violent campaigns for autonomy or independence, they laid down their weapons and turned to organized crime instead,” he told the BBC. “The French state was so focused on fighting the separatists that it ignored their lucrative criminal activities.”

But he believes there is a significant difference between organized crime in Corsica and the mafia’s role in southern Italy.

“In Corsica, clans are bound together not by family ties or rituals of lifelong loyalty, but by simple opportunism,” says Dominici.

The investigation into Orsoni’s shooting is being conducted by judges in Paris, who specialize in fighting organized crime, together with the regional prosecutor’s office in Marseille.

“This murder increases the mafia pressure that weighs heavily on Corsican society,” says Gilles Simeoni, who holds the island’s highest elected position as head of Corsica’s regional government.

“Orsoni was an important contemporary figure in Corsican nationalism, both openly and in the shadows.”

His murder reverberated far beyond Corsica.

The Orsoni family is a household name on the island and has long been associated with nationalism and violence.

In his youth, Alain Orsoni spent time in prison for bomb attacks aimed at pressuring the French state to grant more autonomy to the island.

But the nationalist movement splintered into different factions and increasingly turned to money laundering, extortion, protection rackets, drug trafficking and violence to win lucrative state-run contracts.

Orsoni’s brother Guy was killed by a rival clan in 1983, and his son is in prison for drug trafficking and attempted murder.

He narrowly escaped being killed several times, and at the height of one particularly violent fight, he fled to Central America and turned his attention to investing in casinos.

He knew his life was in constant danger. I saw this first-hand when I spent two days with him for the BBC in 2012.

He was a big football fan and had returned from Central America to manage one of the local football clubs, AC Ajaccio. Under his presidency, AC Ajaccio even gained promotion to Ligue 1, the top tier of French football.

The club’s heyday saw major transfers, including former Mexico goalkeeper Guillermo Ochoa.

When I asked Orsoni how he managed to attract star players despite having the smallest budget in Ligue 1, he smiled: “Corsica is a nice place to play and I think I’m quite convincing.”

At the time, he was wearing a bulletproof vest and was being driven around in an armored vehicle with blacked-out windows. Instead of sitting in a large office with large windows overlooking the beautiful Gulf of Ajaccio, the club president worked from a windowless, concrete bunker deep in the building. When I suggested we tour the town he said absolutely no, it wasn’t safe.

He was famous for his good looks and sing-song southern drawl, as well as his passing resemblance to the late actor and entertainer Yves Montand.

But his easy smile can suddenly turn into eerie silence. When I asked him if it was right for him to become famous as the godfather of Corsica, he replied: “Yes, I am the godfather, but only to my grandchildren.”

As we talked, surrounded by tough-looking men in leather jackets, boots and jeans, I tried to make a joke, which fell flat. After a long, restless pause, Orsoni broke the silence with a chuckle, and his men followed him.

His glamorous role in French football has earned him VIP passes to venues across the country. He rubbed shoulders with mainstream dignitaries and establishment figures, including former President Nicolas Sarkozy, who rarely missed a home game at Paris Saint-Germain.

A local governor once told me that he didn’t like the idea that Orsoni could use his new stage to show a more respectable side.

“It’s true that I have an unusual background for someone to be president of a football club, and I can understand that some people are shocked,” Orsoni said. “But I can tell you that when you meet people, their impressions can change.”

Shortly after my visit, I met with his lawyer, Antoine Sollacaro. He was killed weeks later at a gas station in Ajaccio.

The club has gone through difficult times in recent years. Just a few months ago Orsoni had returned to Nicaragua, although he was still president.

Why would anyone want an exiled former nationalist football figure dead? According to the police, the list is long and blood feuds in Corsica go back a long way.

Alain Bauer, a criminology professor who advised successive French governments on security issues, said his killing was inevitable and could herald further violence.

“I wasn’t surprised when Alain Orsoni was killed, it was just a matter of when he was going to be killed,” Bauer told the BBC.

“But the circumstances behind it are shocking. The assassination in a cemetery in Corsica is surprising, and revenge killings are sure to occur. After all, the real victims are the Corsicans themselves.”

There are few more unifying figures in Corsica than Cardinal François Bustillo, bishop of Ajaccio, who persuaded Pope Francis to visit the island in December 2024, a few months before his death.

This week he called for an end to the bloodshed.

“We must not get used to this eye-for-an-eye, tooth-for-tooth violence. We cannot allow Corsica to drift towards its demons, we must change mentalities,” he said.

The question is whether his defense will be heard.