Edmond Simeoni, the "father" of contemporary Corsican national movement, dies

Edmond Simeoni, the "father" of contemporary Corsican nationalism and father of the Executive Council of the Corsican Assembly Gilles Simeoni, died on December 14th at the age of 84, the most outstanding Corsican political figure of the past fifty years, both founders of islandationalism, environmental activist before the hour and sometimes disappears controversial consciousness of a stream of thought traversed by deep fracture lines.

Born on 6 August 1934 in Corte, in mountainous Corsica, the young gastroenterologist trained in Bastia in the mid-1960s after studying medicine in Marseille. The time is favorable for the indignation of a young doctor acquired with the regionalist ideas – one does not yet say "autonomous". Demographically bloody, the coast is shaped by international financial groups, the island is in a state of almost deserted, local political clans that distribute prejudices and public jobs in an environment of widespread electoral fraud.

made Michel Poniatowski, the then Minister of the Interior, the attack of 2,000 police, backed by armored vehicles. Two soldiers will not get up. Detained and imprisoned on the mainland, Simeoni had to face the hard wing loop of the bow, which consisted of the youngest militants who eventually founded the FLNC in May 1976. "Edmond" is amnestied in 1981. Before being elected one year on the benches of the first assembly of Corsica.


Victim of a heart attack in 1983, he is, however, taken back from life Before he returned to the political scene in 1987, he expressed his public for four years by publicly expressing his "regret of husband and wife " for the death of two mobile gendarmes during the attack on the basement pronounced Aleria. The confession earned him the opposition of the most radical independence movements, who forgot his forecast a little too quickly in the early 1980s, the risk of fraternal clashes that would end bloody rivals between 1994 and 1996.

Throughout his political career, Edmond Simeoni will try to deal with the advocates of a "liberation" of Corsica through weapons, to the point where he is criticized by all sides for his "delay": against secret violence However, he defends the condemned "political prisoners" for attacks and will lead the coalition of Corsica Nazione in the 1992 state elections alongside the pro-armed separatists.


Despite a Franks success – two nationalist lists receive 25% of the votes – he will resign two years later because of the continuation of the attacks 1998 will be a failure, before the Council of State will receive the cancellation of the election and one year later in one The meeting of Corsica, where he meets for the last time from 2004 to 2010.

Edmond Simeoni was also a tireless activist doubled up by a true graphomaniac, author of several books and multiplications, until recently the forums about social networks and the Internet, a paradox epitomized by a generation of islanders embedded in the French national novel and in the French bath who will turn away in favor of a commitment to the Corsican language and identity.
A family history associated with Corsica

The emergence of this awareness, a An early anti-racist commitment and a humanism that was sometimes emphatically emphasized, owing to the influence of his wife Lucie, whom he met at the age of 20 A Polish Jewish family emigrated to Alsace, to which many Saint-Cyrians and civil servants belong. Another paradox for "Edmond," the son of a chosen one, he is described in the rubrics of World in 2004 as : "Small Mayor of the Right, Clan Like All the Others" and Vichy is not surprising, and even the former parachutist officer in Pau, who is very dedicated to receiving the repatriates from Algeria, a military episode he will keep with his face and the skinny silhouette of the cat. Centurions immortalized by Jean Lartéguy.

The family history of Simeoni is inseparably linked to fifty years of island inmates and nationalist demands. Marc, the youngest son, is convicted in 2013 for helping Yvan Colonna on his run. Gilles, the eldest, will be the lawyer. In 2015, shortly after the fortieth anniversary of the events of Aleria, it will complete the Simeoni gesture of becoming the first nationalist to chair the Executive Council – the mini-government of Corsica. Since then, Edmond Simeoni has been publicly unobtrusive, keeping an eye on the island's public affairs and moving from Bastia, where he lived for sixty years, to settling in Ajaccio, the seat of regional power.


Three weeks ago distinguished from the Coppieters Foundation, a European think tank on issues related to diversity and minority rights he wrote in his Blog of November 24: "Before you leave us temporarily, do not forget that freedom alone governs our steps, which are registered in the law. ] (…), that the exclusive democratic struggle is necessary, capital and non-violence our absolute weapon. "

Edmond Simeoni in dates :
6 August 1934 Birth in Corte
1970 Participation in the founding of the Corsican regional action
1975 Events of Aleria
1982 At the Assembly of Corsica elected
1992 head of the list of Corsica Nazione in the state elections
2004 -2010 Died at the Assembly of Corsica
on December 14, 2018, he died at the age of 84 years University Hospital of Ajaccio