Police officers worked inside the cemetery in Vero, Corsica, where former Corsican nationalist Alain Orsoni was shot dead on January 12, 2026. PASCAL POCHARD-CASABIANCA/AFP
A crumpled copy of the local daily Corse-Matin, badly delivered by a newspaper carrier, a broken elevator, a plea for better public services... Callers to "Forum," the morning show on ICI-RCFM radio, aired a familiar litany of grievances on Tuesday, January 13. But none mentioned the assassination of Alain Orsoni, shot dead the previous afternoon during his mother’s funeral in Vero, about 30 kilometers from Ajaccio, Corsica's largest city. On café terraces in the "imperial city," the talk was hushed and elliptical. Patrons referred only obliquely to "handsome Alain," who had "cheated death a thousand times," as one bartender put it, and who lived several parallel lives: From his turbulent student years on the far right to clandestine violence with the FLNC, a Corsican nationalist paramilitary group; from organized crime to business ventures, slot machines in Nicaragua, football and, finally, politics.
"We are in shock," said Marie-France Orsoni, the independent mayor of Vero, where the crime took place. Onlookers were stunned when they saw the former nationalist leader collapse after being struck in the heart by a long-range shot fired by a gunman who was hiding in the forest and then fled the scene on foot. The single bullet found at the scene pointed investigators toward the possibility of organized crime, as confirmed by the involvement of both the specialized interregional jurisdiction in Marseille and the national anti-organized crime prosecutor's office.
