KEY POINTS:
President Nicolas Sarkozy was accused of high-handed cronyism yesterday after a veteran police chief was sacked for failing to stop a demonstration at the Corsican holiday villa of a popular actor.
The weekend protest by Corsican nationalists passed off without incident at the home of Christian Clavier, who is best known outside France for playing the hero of the first two Asterix movies.
Clavier, a close friend of the President, told his staff to serve drinks to the demonstrators, who left after 20 minutes without causing any damage. Nonetheless, the Government announced yesterday that it had dismissed Dominique Rossi, the much-respected head of all security forces on the island.
Rossi, 59, was accused of ignoring an intelligence tip that the separatists - protesting against the "colonisation" of Corsica by rich tourists - intended to invade an enclave of millionaires' holiday homes at Punto d'Oro.
Bomb and machinegun attacks on empty foreign, or French-owned, villas in Corsica are an almost weekly occurrence. The firing of a police chief over a brief, peaceful demonstration in the garden of a luxury villa is, to say the least, bizarre.
The incident was seized upon yesterday by opposition politicians, who have objected in the past to Sarkozy's close friendships with the French glitterati.
Police unions also protested at what they saw as the high-handed dismissal of an officer who made the right decision.
- INDEPENDENT
