Alain Orsoni, 71, ex-FLNC leader and former president of AC Ajaccio football club, was killed by a sniper at his mother's funeral in Vero.
Alain Orsoni, a former Corsican separatist leader and ex-president of AC Ajaccio football club, was killed by a sniper Monday as mourners gathered at his mother's funeral in the village of Vero.
Orsoni, 71, was struck by a single bullet to the chest around 4:30 pm following the burial service, according to authorities.
Ajaccio prosecutor Nicolas Septe said the shot came from long range, fired from several hundred metres away. "He was hit in the heart by a single shot, a long-distance strike," Septe told the French press.
Father Roger Polge, who led the funeral service, told France 3 Corse ViaStella he heard a gunshot during the mourning and Orsoni fell dead. "What is happening in our home?" he said.
Orsoni had travelled from Nicaragua, where he lived, to attend his mother's funeral in his native village about 30 kilometres north of Ajaccio.
The National Anti-Organised Crime Prosecutor's Office — the new French tribunal meant to mostly handle drug trafficking, human trafficking, pimping and armed robbery cases — took over the investigation Monday evening, marking its first task since launching on 5 January.
The office is working with the Marseille inter-regional specialised court. Investigators opened a probe for murder by organised gang and criminal association.
Football ties and gaming interests
Orsoni became a leader of the Corsican National Liberation Front (FLNC) in the 1980s after his brother Guy, also a separatist militant, was assassinated in 1983.
He founded the Movement for Self-Determination (MPA) in 1990 following a split within the Corsican nationalist movement. Opponents dubbed it the "Movement for Business Affairs".
He was elected to Corsica's territorial assembly in 1986 representing the Corsican Movement for Self-Determination.
Orsoni fled Corsica in 1996 during violent infighting within the nationalist movement. He lived 13 years in exile in Florida, Nicaragua and Spain, where he had business interests in gaming.
He returned to Corsica in 2008 and became president of AC Ajaccio, succeeding his friend Michel Moretti after his death. Police foiled an assassination plot against him that same year involving members of the "Petit Bar" criminal gang.
Orsoni served as club president from 2008 to 2015 and again in 2022 when the club returned to Ligue 1. The club was relegated in 2023 due to financial difficulties and excluded from all national competitions for 2025-26. He left the presidency in September 2024.
His son Guy, born in 1984 and named after his slain uncle, is considered a prominent figure in Corsican organised crime.
Guy Orsoni was sentenced in May 2025 to 13 years in prison for attempting to assassinate Pascal Porri, a suspected member of the Petit Bar gang, in 2018. Guy Orsoni himself survived an assassination attempt in September 2018.
Alain Orsoni's killing is among the most prominent assassinations in Corsica since lawyer Antoine Sollacaro was murdered in 2012. Sollacaro had served as Orsoni's attorney.
His killer was sentenced to 30 years in December but the suspected mastermind, Jacques Santoni, believed to lead the Petit Bar gang, remains at large.
A rivalry has existed for years between the Orsoni clan and the Petit Bar criminal organisation.
While armed separatism in Corsica has largely subsided, political nationalism remains influential in the island's politics, with pro-autonomy parties now dominating the island's territorial assembly.
The French government granted Corsica special administrative status in the early 2000s and expanded its autonomy in subsequent reforms, although demands for greater self-determination persist among segments of the island's population of roughly 350,000.