The SOS Méditerranée “stopover” on Sunday 22 and Monday 23 September in Bastia took place under invective and pressure from the local far-right movement. The humanitarian association was the protagonist of the Arte Mare festival, which on Monday offered the broadcast on the big screen of Mothershipa documentary that narrates his actions on board the ship. Viking of the ocean which claims to have rescued more than 40,000 migrants in the Mediterranean over the past eight years.
A handful of activists from far-right parties positioned themselves in front of the cinema to prevent the broadcast at the start of the evening and engaged in lively verbal exchanges with SOS Méditerranée supporters before the screening. “It was more carnival than anything else, I told them to stop communicating and that I would see them during the week if they wanted”Pierre Savelli, the Simeonist mayor (Femu a Corsica) of Bastia, decided, however, noting that the screening and the subsequent debate took place “in serenity”However, a police cordon guaranteed public safety. “It is a non-event”explains to World Mr. Savelli.
“Marginalize your action at home”
The arrival of SOS Méditerranée had shaken up the Corsican identity structure a few days earlier. Nicolas Battini, president of the Mossa Palatina party, close to Eric Zemmour during the European elections and unsuccessful candidate in the June legislative elections in the first constituency of Haute-Corse (4.25%), lit the fuse of the X network on Wednesday 18 September, five days before the arrival of the association: “We will do everything possible within the framework of democracy and peaceful debate to marginalize their action here. Corsica will never be Lampedusa.” The Galea park in Taglio-Isolaccio, about thirty kilometres south of Bastia, has withdrawn from its programme at the last minute the lecture by Sophie Beau, co-founder of SOS Méditerranée, which was due to take place on Sunday 21st.
“We reluctantly cancelled this meeting because we were warned that the debate could not take place peacefully.”indicates to World Fabrice Fenouillère, park director. “It is a place dedicated to knowledge and learning where 500 speakers have been presenting for twelve years, in front of 70,000 people, including many families, it was not the place for explosions of voices”continues.
The SOS Méditerranée association did not want to comment excessively on these events, recalling its mission and limiting itself to pointing out that this cancellation “it was not his doing” and that the projection of Mothership took place the next day “with many supporters present”. Among them, the territorial majority party, Femu a Corsica, recalling its adhesion “universal values of humanism and solidarity”.
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