Seven people were arrested and taken into police custody on Wednesday in Borgo (Haute-Corse) as part of the investigation into damage committed in March on the premises of the departmental employment directorate, said the prosecutor of Bastia.
These degradations had taken place on March 17 against the premises of the departmental employment directorate of Haute-Corse, said Arnaud Viornery, public prosecutor of Bastia.
They would have taken place on the sidelines of the blocking of an oil depot.
"Several people broke windows and threw hazard warning lights in the premises of this administration", he added, specifying that "during the searches carried out in these people's homes, handguns and weapons long were found”.
The investigation "for destruction of the property of others by means dangerous for people" was carried out by the Bastia research brigade.
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These arrests aroused the anger of nationalist parties, including the independence party Core in Fronte and the autonomist party Femu a Corsica, as well as the agricultural union FDSEA of Haute-Corse.
An “unprecedented raid
Denouncing "an unprecedented roundup targeted against young farmers in Haute-Corse", the union said in a statement that the damage had been committed on the sidelines of the blocking of the Marana oil depot to denounce the increase in the price of fuel.
“Part of the action would have been symbolically manifested at a nearest state service” where “a window was broken and a smoke bomb launched”, added the union, “warns (both) the French administration against excessive zeal of all kinds".
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"The reaction of the State and its services in this case is a real provocation against honest workers", also denounced in a press release Femu a Corsica.
The party of Gilles Simeoni, president of the executive council of Corsica, called for the "immediate release" of these people and invited its activists to "meet now in front of the Borgo gendarmerie".
Core in Fronte also regretted the arrest of “several farmers, trade unionists and leaders of Young Farmers” as well as one of its activists.
