Des pains, du vin, du Boursin: French football 2017-2018

[Pérou Flaquettes]

Predictably enough, this Ajaccio-Le Havre omnishambles of a play-off (that’ll teach the LFP to want to copy the English play-offs!*) has turned political.

Jean-Guy Talamoni, the independentist president of the Corsican Assembly (sorry, the "Presidente di l'Assemblea di Corsica" as per his Twitter descriptive; the very assembly that routinely bans French flags, Macron had to demand that they be present during his February visit), is denouncing "anti-Corsican hatred" and wants to create "a collective of Corsican lawyers in order to mount a vigorous response and assert the moral rights of our people […] and, if all other avenues have been exhausted, take the matter to the European Court of Human Rights to enshrine in law the notion of anti-Corsican racism". (links: L’Équipe, Corse-Matin, Ouest-France)

All that just because a few morons on Twitter have insulted Corsica/Corsicans (in reaction mainly to the racist insults a small minority of AC Ajaccio supporters hurled at the Le Havre players on Friday and Sunday – "niggers", "cotton pickers", "fucking French", "fucking Arabs" etc.).

Alternatively, I don’t know, he could buy a couple of frigates out of the Assemblea di Corsica budget, visit Kim Jong-un and try to start World War III with the Supreme Commander.

https://twitter.com/JeanGuyTalamoni/status/998831885223714816



[*the play-offs, differently structured to the English system, made a big comeback last season (last used in 1993) in the three professional divisions as the LFP partly wanted to emulate English football as "it would spice up our competitions and appeal to broadcasters" – « Cela va donner un piment supplémentaire à nos compétitions, avec deux belles journées susceptibles de plaire aux diffuseurs ». You can say that again, it certainly has spiced things up, with Grenoble and Ajaccio the LFP certainly got more than they bargained for so I suppose it’s a success from their viewpoint]

[ursus arctos]

Then again, maybe not



SHAME

Bourg-en-Bresse equalised just before the half, and Grenoble are now down to ten men. Still 1-1 in the 72nd minute.

[Pérou Flaquettes]

Then again, maybe not

You're quite wrong then, it's a pretty nifty food mixer believe me.

Grenoble beats Bourg 2-1, return leg on Sunday. Not a great day for Elogo (Grenoble), he missed a penalty and was sent off.

[Pérou Flaquettes]

Alain Orsoni, the AC Ajaccio deputy-chairman and a member of the LFP admin board (Ligue de Football Professionnel, league football governing body), resigned from the LFP yesterday denouncing a “lynchage médiatique”.

Ligue 2 - Playoffs. Le vice-président d'Ajaccio Alain Orsoni démissionne de la LFP

He called the incidents on Friday and Sunday “comparatively benign”. I suppose Orsoni has a point, compared to what his ex colleagues from the National Liberation Front of Corsica movement used to be up to, yeah, he's absolutely right, it’s cat's piss really, I don’t know why they’re all making such a fuss about nothing really.

Orsoni is a former member of the ultra-right Groupe Union Défense student movement (which I’ve covered in the French political thread – due to their links with the Front National) and an ex leader of the nationalist terrorist movement FLNC in the 1980s, the National Liberation Front of Corsica created in 1976 and dissolved in 2014 (well, a dissolution of sorts as it’s considered dormant by the DGSI, the French internal security intelligence agency; they’re a small groupuscule now and seems to have branched out into low-key anti-Islamism). Orsoni was also accused of, inter alia, being part of a group who killed two Gendarmes in Corsica in 1975, cf his “colourful” wiki. Basically, if you don’t understand French or can’t be bothered to peruse his wiki, his whole life reads like a polar (crime novel), and a very noir one at that. His brother Guy, also an FLNC member, was assassinated after being tortured by FLNC goons. His son, also named Guy, is quite a character too.

Orsoni Affair: A Family Saga In The Corsican Underworld.

Potted history of the FLNC while we’re at it. The FLNC was active between 1976 and 2014 – mainly pre-2000 – when the FLNC decided to renounce violence and lay down arms.
The FLNC split into two movements in 1990, Canal habituel and Canal historique, the latter being the most radical (Canal historique was the underground armed branch of the nationalist party A Cuncolta Naziunalista, the political and public face of the FLNC), with splinter hardcore groups being extremely violent and linked to organised crime, rogue paramilitaries basically (inevitably, such a degree of lawlessness on a relatively small island begets a substantial underworld, which extended its operations onto mainland France, mainly the Riviera and Greater Paris).

That split later led to an internal war between the two factions, about 25 independentists were killed in 1995-96 as a result of this warfare. As a matter of fact, current AC Ajaccio deputy-chairman Alain Orsoni was the leader of the armed branch of Canal habituel. In trouble with the justice system and fearing for his life, he fled France – first to Central America where he made a small fortune from gambling, then Florida and Spain – to return in 2008 when he took over AC Ajaccio. A month later, he narrowly escaped an attempted murder and bought an armoured vehicle, then went to jail for a while – with his son – etc.

In ~35 years, the FLNC committed over 20,000 bombings, violent attacks, kidnappings and assassinations, in Corsica for the vast majority of them (some on mainland France, mostly in Paris and French south-east, areas with a large Corsican community so also with a Corsican milieu). The FLNC became infamous for its “nuits bleues” (blue nights) in Corsica – and later on mainland France – when up to 100 bombings+ would be carried out in one single night - mostly banks, official buildings, military/Gendarmerie barracks (sometimes attacked with a view to steal weapons & ammunitions), touristic complexes and holiday homes belonging to non-Corsicans, i.e continental French, all symbols of “French occupation”. Most bombings on mainland France were run-of-the-mill targets but some were more symbolic than others, such as when the FLNC bombed the Bordeaux City Hall, whose mayor was Alain Juppé, then Prime Minister (still Bordeaux mayor). Non exhaustive list here: https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chrono...9s_par_le_FLNC

[Diable Rouge]

First half in Montpellier was somewhat of an eerie dog's dinner of a game, but Gradel's superb free kick in first-half injury-time breaks the deadlock.

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

Holy shit man. France is so fucking mental. I wonder what their plan for an independent corsica would entail? I'm going to say heroin and piracy.

[Felicity, I guess so]

Well they have no plans for even basic regional/ linguistic autonomy or devolution, that’s the problem

[Diable Rouge]

Well they have no plans for even basic regional/ linguistic autonomy or devolution, that’s the problem

They actually do want Welsh-style official bilingualism, but the central government won't discuss it.

[ursus arctos]

Toulouse win 3-0

[Pérou Flaquettes]

Holy shit man. France is so fucking mental. I wonder what their plan for an independent corsica would entail? I'm going to say heroin and piracy.

Well they have no plans for even basic regional/ linguistic autonomy or devolution, that’s the problem

They actually do want Welsh-style official bilingualism, but the central government won't discuss it.

I’ve put my analysis on the current Corsican situation where it belongs, in the French thread, sorry for leading you astray! It’s in two parts, here and here.

[Pérou Flaquettes]

Oh bugger... A European Cup runner-up with Reims in 1959 and a 1958 World Cup bronze medalist with France, Roger Piantoni has died at the age of 86.

I vividly remember reading an ITW of Platini in the late 1970s (must have been in Mondial or Onze magazine) saying how much Piantoni inspired him when he was young, they were both of Italian extraction and both started at Nancy. Aldo Platini, Michel’s late father and a former amateur footballer in the Nancy area, often eulogised to his son about Piantoni, so that could explain it too. I don’t know why that mundane ITW stuck with me but it did, maybe it wasn’t that mundane after all. My dad, who loved Piantoni, was very saddened by the news.


Are now left from the Sweden 1958's French dream team/squad:

Dominique Colonna (goalkeeper)

François Remetter (gk – only one left from WC 1954 in Switzerland)

Robert Mouynet, (right back)

Bernard Chiarelli (midfielder)

Just Fontaine (forward)

Raymond Bellot (forward)

Yvon Douis (forward)

Maryan Wisniewski (forward).

[Pérou Flaquettes]

Came across this good doc on Marseille during the Tapie years with some funny Chris Waddle bits in it (mostly in English, subtitled in French).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3RbcZsKkGOw (6’20, 9’50 etc.)

This is particularly good (in English):

(hilarious... =>) https://youtu.be/3RbcZsKkGOw?t=8m20s

https://youtu.be/3RbcZsKkGOw?t=9m51s

https://youtu.be/3RbcZsKkGOw?t=16m6s