Corsican businessman gunned down in Ajaccio

The French prime minister has said the murder of a leading Corsican businessman was the work of the mafia. Jacques Nacer was shot dead in his own shop in the centre of Ajaccio. The French Interior Minister Manuel Valls and the Minister of Justice Christiane Toubira met police investigating the killing, which is this year’s 17th murder on the island linked to criminal gangs. Nacer, who was known to have supported Corsica’s nationalists, was shot several times in the head by a lone gunman as he prepared to shut up shop in a busy part of town. This latest murder came a month after a prominent lawyer Antoine Sollarco was killed. He had represented several nationalists who have fought for independence from France. The prime minister Jean-Marc Ayrault said the island’s decline into violence was intolerable.