Dozens hurt in Corsica riots

Protesters clash with police in Bastia following a rally in homage to the pro-independence activist Yvan Colonna who was assaulted in the prison of Arles. (AFP)

The French government called for calm yesterday after fierce clashes left dozens of demonstrators and police injured on the island of Corsica, where anger over the assault in prison of a nationalist figure has reached boiling point. Police reported 67 people injured during protests on Sunday, including 44 police, following scenes that onlookers described as akin to urban guerrilla war. “The overnight scenes were extremely violent,” the chief prosecutor in the north Corsican town of Bastia, Arnaud Viornery, told AFP. Police had to deal with a “quasi-insurrectional” situation, according to a statement by their union, SG Police. Yvan Colonna is serving a life sentence for the assassination in 1998 of the top state official in Corsica, Claude Erignac. He has been in a coma since being beaten on March 2 in jail by a fellow detainee, a convicted jihadist.