CORSICA. Will Corsica become autonomous? The Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, has paved the way for the emancipation of the Island of Beauty. What form could it take? Response elements.
It is, like many others who have come to enamel the five-year term of Emmanuel Macron, a file which was not necessarily planned and which upsets the already busy agenda of the president-candidate: the request for autonomy of Corsica. The Presidency of the Republic has always turned a deaf ear to the repeated and proclaimed desires of the island to detach itself from Paris and to be able to manage itself as it sees fit, or almost. After five years of ignorance, the Head of State and candidate for his own succession is forced to put the file at the top of the pile, between that of Ukraine and that of his presidential program, because of the tensions on the Isle of Beauty since the attack on Yvan Colonna in prison at the beginning of March, he who had been sentenced for the assassination of the prefect of Corsica Claude Erignac. But if he takes his phone to call Vladimir Poutine, Emmanuel Macron does not do the same with Gilles Siméoni, President of the Executive Council. No, the resident of the Elysée has entrusted Gérald Darmanin with leading the negotiations with the elected islanders to find a way out of a situation that has flared up on the island.
When could Corsica become autonomous?
Arrived in Corsica this Wednesday March 16, 2022 to meet, for three days, the local leaders, the Minister of the Interior quickly declared that the government was ready to go “to the autonomy” of the community. A long-awaited announcement on the island, but received with caution. This is not the time for general excitement. However, if the tenant of Place Beauvau expects long negotiations between Paris and Ajaccio, he promises to go quickly. With France 3 Corse, Gérald Darmanin mentioned the planned timetable: “I proposed to President Simeoni that by the end of 2022, if we are in charge, we can put an end to these discussions around the status of autonomy, whatever it is.” Emmanuel Macron, if he is re-elected next April, therefore gives himself less than nine months to decide on the institutional future of the island of Beauty.
What are the consequences and conditions of autonomy for Corsica?
Autonomy, but for what? Unlike independence, Corsica would remain under the control of the French State, which will retain all sovereign prerogatives on the territory, namely everything concerning the police, the army and justice. On the other hand, the community could obtain many competences, in particular economic with its own taxation, but also educational, environmental or even on the development of the territory. This is the possibility suggested by Gérald Darmanin. “It can be an autonomy within the constitution of today. Polynesia has a status which allows it to be totally in the Republic and to have a particular specificity: it is she who manages everything which is economic and social”, he said on BFMTV / RMC Wednesday, March 16. However, it is not the “first cop in France” who will decide: “It will be up to the President of the Republic to decide,” he told France 3 Corse.
If talks therefore began on the occasion of Gérald Darmanin’s visit to Corsica, Gilles Siméoni does not want to claim victory too quickly. “It is a founding meeting, of course. But we are vigilant. Too often Corsica and the Corsican people have been deceived”, he commented after his meeting with the Minister of the Interior, Wednesday March 16, 2022. Noting that “important points have been recorded”, the Chairman of the Executive Council welcomed this “first step in a process of historic significance”. But the one who was Yvan Colonna’s lawyer made his demands, as Le Point relates: “We want justice and the truth about Yvan Colonna’s attack, the immediate rapprochement of Pierre Alessandri and Alain Ferrandi (also condemned for the assassination of the prefect Érignac, editor’s note) in accordance with the law, and more generally the release of the last prisoners. The recognition of the Corsican people.”
Through the start of these talks, Emmanuel Macron and the government have several aims: first, that of playing the card of appeasement in the street, while a wind of revolt is blowing in Corsica. But beyond a return to calm, the President of the Republic also puts on his candidate cap and wants to seduce a population which had turned to Marine Le Pen (27%) and François Fillon (25%) in the first round. in 2017, choosing the Head of State by a short margin in the second round (51%). With a little more than three weeks before the first round, it is therefore a question for Emmanuel Macron of incubating an electorate which could be important, he who is already seeking the support of the nationalists by having lifted the status of detainee particularly signaled by Alain Ferrandi and Pierre Alessandri, accomplices of Yvan Colonna, and considered their transfer to the prison of Borgo, in Corsica.