It has been almost eighteen months since the teams of Marie-Antoinette Maupertuis, an autonomist president of the Corsican Assembly, launched invitations to the executive, in Paris, as part of the work on the mafia drifts of the island. Pain lost. So she was surprised when we announced on Monday, February 24, the arrival of the Keeper of the Seals three days later. Thursday, February 27, Gérald Darmanin was present upstream of the session of the Corsican Assembly devoted to the fight against mafia drifts. This last -minute guest announced a “state action revolution against the island mafia system”.
“I admit that I was surprised by her coming,” comments Marie-Antoinette Maupertuis. Just as surprised, the president of the executive of the Corsican local authority, Gilles Simeoni, said that the statements of the Minister of Justice were an “important political moment”. “”[Cela va] Beyond what we had been able to imagine, “he said. The announcements to combat mafia drifts are substantial. First, a specialized antimafia pole in Bastia, linked to the creation of a national prosecution against organized crime (Pnaco), a project today examined by Parliament and which is to be set up on January 1, 2026. Then, the arrival on the island of specialized investigatives and Strengthening the number of the courts of Ajaccio and Bastia.
Strong declarations, to which the Minister of Justice has added a symbol: the abolition of the names of nationalist activists sentenced to “terrorism” of the national automated judicial file of the perpetrators of terrorist offenses (Fijait). At the time when he was Minister of the Interior, the question of Fijait was a claim of local elected officials as part of the Beauvau process on the autonomy of the island. If, today, the reform is brought by François Rebsamen, Minister of Spatial Planning and Decentralization, Gérald Darmanin has kept an eye on the file that has enabled him to create and deepen his networks for three years. As if the Keeper of the Seals had remained the “Corsican Mister” of the government.
Sarkozyst networks
This relationship began three years ago in March 2022. Yvan Colonna, nationalist activist sentenced to life imprisonment for the assassination of the prefect Erignac, was fatally injured by one of his fellow prisoners, Franck Elong Abé. The news leads violent demonstrations to Cortia, Bastia and Ajaccio. “The streets of Bastia were on fire,” recalls Michel Castellani, deputy (Liot) of Haute-Corse. Faced with this question of public order, Gérald Darmanin, then Minister of the Interior, was sent on site on March 16 and 17. He declares that the government is “ready to go as far as autonomy”. The announcement is delighted by the autonomist elected officials, but makes teeth to the right. A process is launched Place Beauvau in order to recognize the autonomy of Corsica in the Republic.
The opportunity is good for the Minister of the Interior, who sees it as the opportunity to advance a difficult file on a territory expensive to the right. The former Minister of the Interior, Charles Pasqua, is from this. Nicolas Sarkozy, another ex-Lovau locator, had carried out a very good score in the 2007 presidential election (60.12 %) and that of 2012 (55.87 %). An affinity on which Gérald Darmanin tries to capitalize. “He was able to reactivate longtime networks of Sarkozie at that time, observes a member of the executive. He is still far from the level of knowledge that Nicolas Sarkozy of the island-his first wife is Corsica, his two sons are. Gérald learned Corsica late.” Above all, in ten years, the face of the island has changed.
A “political society”
Since 2015, the president of the Corsican Executive Council has been Gilles Simeoni, an autonomist. He has to withdraw links, rebuild a network. The minister’s office therefore multiplies meetings with local elected officials and civil society in the first weeks of the process. “He understood that Corsica was a political company, and he was able to adapt his proposals in negotiations – as shown in the decision on the Fijait,” said André Paccou, delegate of Corse for the League for Human Rights, an association which took part in the meetings. “He woven links,” said Patrice Bossard, secretary general of the CSRA-Du-Sud CGT. The minister relies on one of his advisers, Grégory Canal, in charge of the Corsican issue. “He met people in a less solemn setting than in the prefecture, which facilitated filter discussions. I said to him ‘Come, we made a restaurant in the evening’, in the afternoon he had met independentists, and in the morning he was with lawyers,” said Jean-Martin Mondoloni, leader of the right-wing opposition group.
An agreement was concluded in March 2024, ending the Beauvau process. The end of this stage of negotiations is perceived as a victory by Gérald Darmanin and his entourage, who see it as a way to put this difficult subject on the board of the achievements of the Minister of the Interior. A precious achievement, while the “Darmanin method” has worked much less elsewhere. “He took the file of New Caledonia, and failed there, Tance the senator (LR) of Corse-du-Sud Jean-Jacques Panunzi, in reference to the violent riots who crossed the archipelago in May 2024. I pointed out to him on several occasions that the Noumea agreements were more than twenty years old and that nothing is resolved. years and four meetings? “
In fact, negotiations are stalling for a time, the dissolution of the National Assembly putting any progress in break. The project also meets oppositions, both on the island of beauty and in Paris. In the Senate, Bruno Retailleau, then leader of republican senators, denounces “absolutely major difficulties”, in particular “the recognition of a historical, cultural, linguistic community, linked to land”. Today in the government, the new Minister of the Interior does not reject the text head -on, but continues to display a very firm line. Asked Thursday, February 26, by Corsica morning – The day before the intervention of the Keeper of the Seals in the Assembly of Corsica -, Bruno Retailleau insists: “Corsica must remain fully in the Republic.” Autonomy is not the priority: “We need results in current skills to improve the concrete life of Corsicans. This is what matters.” A position always shared by the senatorial right: Wednesday, March 5, a report of the senatorial information mission on the institutional evolution of the island was not adopted in the Law Commission. A small earthquake, which shows the divisions between center and left, for the “Beauvau process”, and the right, always resistant to a wider autonomy.
One eye on the process
Discussions continue outside the Place Beauvau anyway. A curiosity: usually, as in 1998 under Jean-Pierre Chevènement, or more recently with Jacqueline Gourault-attached to the Minister of the Interior-the “Corsican question” is often negotiated under the aegis of the first cop in France. Catherine Vautrin, Minister of Spatial Planning of the Barnier government, then François Rebsamen, currently in office and a long -date connoisseur of the island of beauty, inherit the file. In a visit to Corsica on February 10, the latter told Corsica morning That his “goal” was “to include in the fundamental law in particular the first paragraph resulting from the Beauvau Agreement” – which indicates that Corsica would be “endowed with a status of autonomy within the Republic which takes into account its own interests linked to its Mediterranean insunity and to its historical, linguistic, cultural community, having developed a singular link to its land”.
Not really aligned with the previous positions of the current tenant of Beauvau, but more with those of the Elysée… and Gérald Darmanin. “In any case, we were told from the start that if François Rebsamen was now our interlocutor, Gérald Darmanin would retain a form of influence and a role in the landscape, says Jean-Christophe Angelini, mayor of Porto-Vecchio and secretary general of the Corsican Nation Party. After all, constitutional bills are the chancellery.”
Capitalize on its assessment
Even if he is no longer responsible, the Keeper of the Seals continues to follow a file on which he was, in the opinion of the elected officials questioned, “very involved”. “He could not help talking about it at the end of his speech on Thursday, observes Jean-Jacques Panunzi. It was a way of saying to the Corsicans: ‘You see, I promised you an institutional advance, I hold my word, I come back, I take my hand’.” Going so far as to insist heavily on its now stainless links with the island. “He said to us on Thursday, I quote, that Corsica ‘was now part of his political DNA’,” says Jean-Christophe Angelini, who continues with enthusiasm: “I believe that there has been a meeting between Corsica and the Minister in recent months. Lies of trust have established themselves, both on a human level as on the political level.” To the point of watching the evolution of the text carefully: “It is a file that interests him. He follows the baby”, confirm his relatives.
Returning a deputy between June and December, on his return to government, Gérald Darmanin continued to maintain his relations. On social networks, he notably insisted on his trip to Corsica, at the end of November, to put the medal of officer of the Legion of Honor to his “friend” angel Santini, mayor of Calvi. He had taken the opportunity to give an interview to Corsica morninghighlighting his work during the Beauvau process. Enough to capitalize on his assessment – and to continue to deepen his networks. “Gérald Darmanin, as we know, does a lot of politics. Corsica becomes his totem: he wants to prove that he has succeeded. But how?” Asks Jean-Jacques Panunzi, who notes that no “popular consultation” took place on the negotiated text between Corsican elected officials and the government. The date of a possible ballot has not yet been set.
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