France talks pave way towards Corsican autonomy

President Emmanuel Macron in September set a six-month deadline to find a way to give the island “a form of autonomy”.

Corsicans have long wanted more say on their own affairs, as well as official status for their language and protection from outsiders buying up land – two thorny requests that Paris has been reluctant to grant.

Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin and Corsican officials in the early hours of Tuesday said they had agreed on wording to be added in the constitution.

“This constitutional text foresees the recognition of a status of autonomy for Corsica within the (French) republic that takes into account its own interests linked to it being a Mediterranean island, its historic, linguistic and cultural community having developed singular ties to its land,” a first line read.

Darmanin said both sides had also agreed that “laws and regulations can be adapted” on the island.

“We have taken a step towards autonomy” but “there is no separation between Corsica and the republic,” Darmanin said.

They had made no mention of the Corsican language becoming official, he said.

Darmanin said that registered voters in Corsica would be consulted on the plan, as would the island’s parliament in Ajaccio, which is currently controlled by nationalists.

‘We’re in the semi-finals’ 

Corsica’s executive council president Gilles Simeoni, an advocate for autonomy, hailed it as a “decisive step”.

“The principle of a legislative power submitted to oversight from the Constitutional Council” in Paris had clearly been defined, he said.

But he said they still needed to hammer out the finer details of how this regional legislature would operate.

“We’re in the semi-finals. We still need to win the semi-finals and the finals,” he said, using a football metaphor.

Once the text in its final form has been approved by the Corsican parliament, it will then be submitted to a vote in the lower-house National Assembly and the right-leaning upper-house Senate in Paris.

Only if they both give it a green light will it then move on to a combined vote of both houses, in which it will need three-fifths of votes to be enacted.

Bruno Retailleau, who leads right-wing Republican senators, on Tuesday warned against what he called a “dangerous step to take”.

“The bill on Corsica amounts to enshrining communitarianism in the constitution. Recognising a ‘historic, linguistic and cultural community’ amounts to recognising the Corsican people,” he wrote on X, formerly Twitter.

In Corsica, local newspaper Corse Matin celebrated what is called white smoke signalling future “real” autonomy for the island of some 350,000 residents.

But not all on the island were fervent supporters of the plan.

“I still think that granting legislative power is a problem, but I won’t take on the role of the executioner of this process,” said Jean-Martin Mondoloni, a member of the right-wing opposition in the Corsican assembly.

Endangered language

Corsica shot to the top of the French political agenda in 2022 when widespread protests broke out on the island over the killing in a mainland prison of prominent separatist figure Yvan Colonna.

Colonna – jailed for life over the 1998 murder of the region’s prefect Claude Erignac – was stabbed to death by another inmate.

In October a series of explosions rocked the island that mainly targeted second homes and building sites but caused no major damage or casualties.

The National Liberation Front of Corsica (FLNC), a separatist group demanding independence from France rather than a form of autonomy, claimed responsibility.

The FLNC first emerged in 1976 but has since been plagued by internal struggles and split several times into different factions. 

It announced in 2014 that it would lay down its weapons.

But this has not prevented sporadic violence on the island, which is a hugely popular tourist destination for the French.

Corsican, which is close to standard Italian and has about 150,000 native speakers, is considered by the UN’s cultural organisation UNESCO to be in danger of becoming extinct.

(AFP)