The former leader of the Corsican independence movement was shot near the French city of Ajaccio in Corsica.
As reported by French prosecutor Nicolas Septe, the former leader of the Corsican separatists was shot during his mother's funeral on Monday, January 12, in the village of Vero, which is 30 km east of Ajaccio.
"He was killed by a shot from a long distance," said Septe, and local police confirmed the murder.
71-year-old Orsoni led the "Corsican Movement for Self-Determination," which the French police describe as a legal cover for the armed group "Corsican National Liberation Front – Traditional Wing."
Orsoni was accused, convicted, and subsequently pardoned in connection with a machine-gun attack on the Iranian embassy in Paris in 1980.
There is a powerful nationalist movement in Corsica. In 1998, activists advocating for the island's independence shot the chief French official in Corsica, Claude Erignac.
Other acts of violence have mostly been low-level, often related to explosive devices planted in cars or buildings at night when they were unoccupied.
