Outside of Ajaccio, filter blockages were nevertheless in place on Tuesday in front of eight high schools and colleges in Haute-Corse and five establishments in Corse-du-Sud, the rectorate told AFP.
The demonstrators are contesting the decision, in mid-November, of the Marseille administrative court of appeal which confirmed the ban on the use of the Corsican language within the island assembly, deemed unconstitutional.
The University of Corte was also blocked on Tuesday and courses were “not guaranteed”, the communications department told AFP, specifying that it should be unblocked on Wednesday.
On Monday, the blockages affected around ten high schools and colleges in Corsica and clashes broke out in Ajaccio, forcing the town hall to temporarily close the Christmas market and pushing Monday evening, Cardinal Bustillo and the prefect of Corsica to launch calls for calm.
“Dear young people, we must stop this violence,” the Bishop of Corsica called on Monday in Corsican, adding in French: “Families are afraid, children are afraid, traders are worried, (…) we must resolve problems through dialogue and not through violence.” “The Pope is coming, (…) let us prepare for peace”, he called for his wishes.
A wish heard by the nationalist student unions Ghjuventù Indipendentista (GI) and Ghjuventu Paolina (GP), at the origin of the movement.
“If the fight against the repression of the Corsican language has lasted for more than 40 years and pushes us to fight with all our strength, we do not want these moments of demand to be able to call into question, in any way whatsoever, the conditions of the coming of Pope Francis”, wrote the GI in a press release published on the night of Monday to Tuesday.
Calling “Corsican youth to return to school”, the union gave them an appointment in January to resume mobilization.
Because “the current context could possibly call into question the arrival of Pope Francis”, the GP called on Tuesday morning “all activists to use peaceful means of action so that this event can take place”, ensuring that the mobilization “will only be stronger following the coming of the Holy Father”.
Francis is due to make the first visit by a pope to Corsica on December 15.
