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A former Corsican nationalist leader was killed in a cemetery earlier this week while attending his mother’s funeral in a brazen attack that has drawn multiple French law enforcement agencies into the investigation.
Alain Orsoni, 71, was struck by a single bullet on Monday in a village in southern Corsica, often called the “Isle of Beauty,” prosecutors said. The public prosecutor of Corsica, Nicolas Septe, confirmed that Orsoni was hit by a long-range shot and died quickly from his injuries. An investigation into what has been classified as an organized killing has been opened.
Witnesses described the scene as surreal. “We had just buried Alain’s mother. It was a moment of grief and sorrow, and suddenly we heard a gunshot and Alain fell down, dead,” the visibly shaken priest presiding over the funeral told a regional television station. He said the attack had left the community in shock and compared it to violence once seen in Sicily.
Several French judicial authorities, including the newly formed National Anti-Crime Prosecutor’s Office (PNACO), are involved in the case. PNACO, which was established in January to combat organized crime and drug trafficking, dispatched a prosecutor to Corsica the day after the killing and said it would coordinate the investigation with local police and the Marseille Interregional Specialized Court.
Orsoni was a prominent figure in Corsica’s nationalist movement. He was one of the leaders of the National Liberation Front of Corsica (FLNC) in the 1980s, an armed group that fought for the island’s independence and claimed responsibility for numerous attacks on French authorities. He served in the Territorial Assembly of Corsica and was involved in violent clashes with law enforcement, including a 1980 attack on the Iranian embassy in Paris in which four gendarmes were wounded.
After leaving Corsica in the mid-1990s amid internecine struggles within the nationalist movement, Orsoni spent several years in the United States and Latin America, where he became a businessman. He later returned to Corsica and held positions including manager of the AC Ajaccio soccer club. In 2008, he survived an assassination attempt shortly after taking over the club.
Orsoni also faced legal troubles in France, including a conviction in Paris in the 2000s for organizing his own insolvency. His family has been also touched by violence: his brother Guy was murdered in 1983, a tragedy that Orsoni later commemorated by naming his son after him. The younger Orsoni was sentenced in May 2025 to 13 years in prison for criminal conspiracy.
The killing of Orsoni marks the first case handled by PNACO and underscores the continued volatility of Corsica, where nationalist rivalries and organized crime have long intersected. Authorities said it is too early to speculate on a motive, and investigations are ongoing.