The well-known separatist Alain Orsoni was shot in cold blood at his own mother’s funeral. Is this the culmination of a decades-old vendetta?
01/14/2026, 05:1801/14/2026, 05:18
Stefan Brändle, Paris / ch media
The scene would fit in a mafia movie. Village residents dressed in black were attending the funeral of Marinette Orsoni (92) in the Vero cemetery on Monday when a shot was fired. A man collapsed, hit right in the heart.
Alain Orsoni at an AC Ajaccio game in 2016.Image: imago sports photo service
As everyone present knew, the murdered man was the son of the buried widow. His name is well known in France: Alain Orsoni was a co-founder of the “Corsican Liberation Front” FLNC a good 50 years ago.
The sniper was probably hiding in the bushes above the picturesque village of 600 people. He wasn’t caught. The public prosecutor only assumed that it must be a professional killer, as he fired a single shot from “several hundred meters”.
We’ll probably never know more. The Omertà, the law of silence, prevails especially in the remote villages of the “Île de beauté” (Island of Beauty), which is known for having the highest murder rate in France.
For “Corsica Nazione”
Did Orsoni (71) fall victim to one of those vendettas that often drag on for decades? In Veto we remember that Alain’s brother Guy was kidnapped in the 1980s and was never found again. Did Alain Orsoni want revenge? When two kidnapping suspects were shot dead by an FLNC commando, their founder had an alibi. Nevertheless, he had to flee Corsica from the opposing faction of the FLNC “canal historique”, the historical canal. He built a casino network in Nicaragua.
In 2008 he returned to his home island and, as a sign of his honesty, took over the football club AC Ajaccio. But it didn’t last long before he became the target of an assassination attempt. Since then, he has only moved around with an armored Audi and the protection of bodyguards. The only time he apparently didn’t wear his bulletproof vest was at the cemetery, at his mother’s funeral.
Orsoni was committed to politics throughout his life and advocated for the Corsican people’s right to self-determination. He once ran for the “Corsica Nazione” coalition and won a seat in the island’s parliament. However, he was never able to exercise his mandate due to “financial irregularities”.
An anti-mafia demonstration in the Corsican town of Bastia in November 2025.Image: www.imago-images.de
In 2017, the separatists won the majority in the “Corsican Assembly of Deputies”. In 2013, President Emmanuel Macron had to promise the island extensive autonomy. But Alain Orsoni was politically sidelined. Because his family clan continued to be involved in the Ajaccio milieu. But most Corsicans have had enough of the spiral of violence with arms and drug trafficking that is hidden behind the FLNC seal.
When the completely uninvolved 18-year-old student Chloé Aldrovandi was “mistakenly” shot in Ponte-Leccia a year ago, according to sources in the community, thousands took to the streets. With their slogan “Maffia Nò” they chanted angry slogans against the FLNC criminals, money launderers, traffickers, dealers – and killers. That didn’t help Orsoni anymore. (aargauerzeitung.ch)