Gangland killing at a funeral shocks idyllic French island

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.

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.

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.

Yesterday, Alain Orsoni was cremated after a funeral service in Ajaccio. There was a large police presence.

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.

“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.

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.

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.

But for a cousin of the victim, Christian Leca, Orsoni’s killing was “a tipping point in the horror”.

“People don’t kill in cemeteries, it’s intolerable,” he told Le Monde newspaper.

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.

“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.”

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

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

Judges in Paris specialised in tackling organised crime are running the investigation into Orsoni’s shooting alongside the regional prosecutor’s office in Marseille.

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

“Orsoni was a major contemporary figure in Corsican nationalism both out in the open and and in the shadows.”

His killing has reverberated far beyond Corsica.

The Orsoni family are a household name on the island and they have been long linked to nationalism as well as episodes of violence.

In his younger years, Alain Orsoni spent time in jail for bomb attacks aimed at putting pressure on the French state to grant the island more autonomy.

But the nationalist movement split into different groups 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 jail for drug trafficking and attempted murder.

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

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

A big football fan, he had moved back from Central America to run one of the local football clubs AC Ajaccio. Under his presidency, AC Ajaccio were even promoted to the top flight of French football, Ligue 1.

Big signings were made during the club’s heyday, 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 cracked a smile: “Corsica is a nice place to play and I guess I am quite persuasive.”

At the time, he wore a bullet-proof vest and was driven around in an armored car with tinted windows. Rather than sit in a grand office with big windows overlooking the beautiful Bay of Ajaccio, the club president worked in a windowless, concrete bunker deep inside the building. When I suggested we go for a tour of the town, he categorically said no, it wasn’t safe.

He was renowned for his good looks and sing-song southern accent, as well as a passing resemblance to the late actor and showman Yves Montand.

But his easy going smile could suddenly turn to an eerie silence. When I asked him if his reputation as the godfather of Corsica was true, he replied: “Yes, I’m the godfather, but only to my grandchildren.”

As we talked, surrounded by tough-looking men in leather jackets, boots and jeans, I attempted to crack a joke that fell flat. After a long, uneasy pause, Orsoni broke the silence with a chuckle and his henchmen followed suit.

His eye-catching role in French football gave him a VIP pass to grounds across the country. He rubbed shoulders with mainstream dignitaries and establishment figures, including ex-President Nicolas Sarkozy, who rarely missed a home game at Paris Saint-Germain.

A local prefect once told me of his distaste at the thought that Orsoni could be profiting from his new stage to show a more respectable side.

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

Not long after my visit, I talked to his lawyer, Antoine Sollacaro. Weeks later he was murdered at a petrol station in Ajaccio.

In recent years, the club had fallen on hard times. Although Orsoni was still president until only a few months ago, he had moved back to Nicaragua.

Why would anyone want an exiled ex-nationalist football figure dead? The list is long, according to police, and vendettas go back a long way in Corsica.

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

“That Alain Orsoni was killed does not surprise me, it was just a question of when not if,” Bauer told the BBC.

“But the circumstances behind it are shocking. An assassination in a graveyard in Corsica is surprising and it’s pretty certain there will be revenge killings. In the end the main victims are the Corsicans themselves.”

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

This week he called for an end to the bloodletting.

“We mustn’t get used to this eye-for-an-eye, tooth-for-a-tooth violence. We cannot allow Corsica to drift towards its demons, we have to change mentalities,” he said.

The question is whether his plea will be heard.