Corsican separatist's assassination sparks shock on French island

Corse Matin reports on the murder of Alain Orsoni, a Corsican separatist leader who was gunned down on Monday while attending his mother's funeral. FRANCE 24 reminds us that Orsoni led a separatist movement called the Corsican Movement for Self Determination, which was linked to a series of attacks on the French island in the 1990s. He was convicted and later pardoned for a machine gun attack on the Iranian embassy in Paris in 1980 and served as president of the Corsican football club AC Ajaccio during the late 2000s. Le Parisien notes that a wave of shock has engulfed the island. Will his death finally awaken consciences and break the hellish cycle of violence in Corsica? That's what the papers editors are asking. Some 20 criminal gangs operate in Corsica, which has the highest homicide per capita rate of all of France. The daily notes that last year, two anti-mafia protests took place. It expresses hope that the tide is turning.

In the Italian daily Corriere della Sera, a mafia specialist draws a comparison between Corsican organised crime and its alleged role in the deadly bar fire in the Swiss ski station of Crans-Montana. Roberto Saviano, who penned the acclaimed novel "Gomorrah" about the Neapolitan mafia, has lived under police protection for 20 years. He reminds us that the bar's owner Jacques Moretti was previously convicted of procuring prostitutes, fraud and kidnapping in France. Saviano wonders how Moretti was able to purchase real estate in one of Switzerland’s most expensive cities in cash. He points the finger at the Corsican mafia, saying that its model, like the Italian mafia, is based on investing in the legal economy – like restaurants and bars.

Chinese organised criminal organisations also allegedly use the legal economy to launder their money, according to an investigation from Libération. The daily reports on a document from a French police department specialising in organised crime, the Sirasco. The report reveals that Chinese citizens from the eastern province of Zhejiang have become "experts in industrial-level money laundering activities" in France. They purchase warehouses or local betting bars which are used as parallel underground banks. Furthermore, they have become so efficient that other mafia groups – Albania, Moroccan, Corsican or Italian – "employ their services" to change their illegal money into legitimate money.

The Daily Telegraph has published details of a plan by China to build an expansive underground complex beneath its new super embassy in London. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer is expected to approve that embassy ahead of an upcoming diplomatic visit to China. The plans were redacted for the public – but the Telegraph says it has uncovered the unredacted documents. It reports that China will build a hidden chamber as part of a network of 208 secret rooms beneath its embassy in London. The chamber will sit directly alongside underground cables transporting sensitive British financial information to the City of London. Hot-air extraction systems suggest the installation of heat-generating equipment for possible espionage.

Finally, artificial intelligence is complicating efforts to find a gang of monkeys on the loose in the US city of St Louis. The citizens and authorities of St Louis, Missouri are grappling with an unusual problem. A gang of vervet monkeys have been on the loose since last week. Gizmodo reports that people started having fun with the situation – posting AI videos of monkeys stealing cars to social media. This quickly proved problematic for authorities, as people using AI videos falsely claimed to have spotted the monkeys. Gizmodo says someone also reported a goat on the loose, but no one knows if that's AI or not. In short, we now cannot believe our own eyes!

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