Former Corsican nationalist leader and football club executive Alain Orsoni was killed while attending a family member’s funeral on Monday, France’s anti-organized crime prosecutor, who is overseeing the investigation, said in a statement. Prosecutors are investigating the incident as a possible murder, the statement read. No arrests have been made as of Tuesday. Local prosecutor Nicolas Septe told reporters little information was immediately available, apart from the fact that Orsoni had been shot from a distance at his mother’s funeral and died shortly afterward. Orsoni led several political movements in favor of Corsica’s independence in the 1980s and 1990s and was elected to regional office — before leaving the French Mediterranean island for South America in 1996. Orsoni’s brother Guy was killed in 1983 by a Corsican gang. His son, also named Guy, was sentenced to 13 years in prison last year for the attempted murder of convicted Corsican gang member Pascal Porri. Orsoni returned to Corsica in 2008 to head the then-professional local football club AC Ajaccio — the club has now fallen to the lower, amateur levels of French football — and survived a first assassination attempt shortly after taking up the role. This is the first time the anti-organized crime prosecutor’s office, which began operations last week, has taken charge of a case. The office was set up by legislation passed last year to strengthen France’s response to a surge in killings tied to drug trafficking.

The southeastern part of France, including the city of Cannes, suffered a power outage on Saturday, temporarily disrupting the international film festival. About 160,000 households lost power on Saturday morning around 10 a.m. following a fire at a high-voltage transformer and damage to power lines, France’s electricity operator RTE said, adding it is working to restore the system. Both the fire and the damage to the power lines appeared to be of criminal origin, according to the local police which opened an investigation. The power cut also disrupted internet connections, the phone network, as well as traffic in the city and the train system. The organizers of the Cannes film festival, which closes on Saturday night with the award of the prestigious Palme d’Or, said the blackout led to few disruptions. Some film screenings were interrupted, but the closing ceremony will take place as planned on Saturday night and “in normal conditions” as the venue runs on independent power generators, the organizers said.

PARIS — French Prime Minister François Bayrou convened key Cabinet members on Tuesday after divisions among ministers over banning athletes from wearing hijabs during sporting events spilled into public view. “There’s only one line within the government … no visible religious symbols should be worn in sports competitions,” French Minister for Gender Equality Aurore Bergé said in parliament after the meeting, seemingly settling the government’s position. Religious symbols have been banned in elementary and secondary schools since 2004 but remained allowed in universities. Earlier this year, the French Senate voted in favor of a proposal to ban “symbols or clothing ostensibly displaying a political or religious affiliation” in sports due to their educational role in “teaching cooperation and respect for common rules.” The proposal — which received the government’s support — argued that the ban was necessary to uphold France’s model of a colorblind, secular republic. Though it passed in the Senate, the proposal must also be voted by the French lower house, the National Assembly. Last week, French Sports Minister Marie Barsacq appeared to downplay the government’s plans to push for legislation on the issue, saying that banning religious symbols in amateur sporting competitions in France was “not a priority.” Education Minister Élisabeth Borne, a former prime minister, said that it “was also up” to each individual sporting federation to determine its position on displaying religious symbols. The French football, basketball, and volleyball federations, for example, have already imposed religious neutrality in the competitions they organize. Barsacq and Borne’s positions were met with staunch pushback from Justice Minister Gérald Darmanin, who went as far as accusing the sports minister of being “naïve.” He even threatened to resign in an interview with Le Parisien shortly before the meeting with Bayrou. “We need to ban headscarves in sporting competitions, it’s obvious,” he said Tuesday. “I regret that the sports minister and the education minister are not stronger advocates for this.” The government’s reaffirmed stance was welcomed by the conservative interior minister, Bruno Retailleau. “The Prime Minister was right to reiterate the government line,” Retailleau wrote on X. Last summer in Paris, France was the only country to ban its athletes from wearing the hijab, sparking condemnation from human rights organizations like Amnesty International. United Nations experts have called restrictions on headscarves from French sporting federations “discriminatory,” arguing that secularism was not a “legitimate ground” to impose such a ban.