Tensions, insults, clashes… Incidents broke out in front of the Régent cinema in Bastia, in Haute-Corse, on Monday September 23, on the sidelines of the screening of the documentary Mothership as part of the Arte Mare festival. The screening of the film, shot in the Mediterranean on the Ocean Viking, a ship belonging to the SOS Méditerranée association, followed by a debate, was even delayed.
For a few days now, the arrival in Corsica of the SOS Méditerannée association has provoked a wave of protest from political identity and far-right movements. About twenty of these activists positioned themselves in front of the cinema entrance behind a lectern set up for the occasion. Filippo de Carlo, a member of the new movement “Union des droites per i nostri”, which brings together several local far-right organisations, including Christophe Canioni and Alexis Fernandez, tried to speak. In front of him, about 150 people came to support the production team and the organisers of the documentary screening.
Boos rise from the crowd, music resounds from a sound system to drown out the words of the president of the Forza Nova movement. He is even sprayed with a streamer bomb, usually used in carnivals. The time has come not for debate but for insults and name-calling of all kinds: “Youth fucks the National Front,” chant the supporters before singing “Bella Ciao”, a famous Italian resistance song during the Second World War. A large police presence set up on the fringes of the cultural event separates the two camps.
Elected officials and activists from Femu a Corsica, the autonomist movement leading the region, are there to support the screening of Mothership: “We would like to point out that the debate of ideas and freedom of expression are fundamental elements in any democracy, specifies a press release from the nationalist movement. Pierre Savelli, the mayor of Bastia, and Lauda Guidicelli, executive councilor of Corsica delegated to youth and sports, are notably present on the nationalist side along with other elected officials from the Bastia majority. Figures from the Communist Party such as Francis Riolacci, cultural activists and members of the extreme left have also come to swell the ranks.
Although heated exchanges took place, the people who had come to see the film were finally able to go inside the cinema. At the time of writing, Cesar Campinchi Street was still blocked by the police. And activists from both sides were facing each other.
Hostilities began at the end of last week, with a simple announcement of the arrival of SOS Méditerranée for two days in Bastia, on September 22 and 23, marked by the desire to open a volunteer branch in Corsica.
It was this last piece of information that provoked the ire of his opponents: “Corsica will not be the Lampedusa of tomorrow”, writes Marie-Pierre Cesari, departmental delegate of Corsica.
Regarding the project to create an antenna in Corsica, the structure specifies: “By antenna, we mean networks of volunteers who organize support events, school awareness actions, etc. This does not imply a physical premises. None of the 21 antennas have an office.”
