It is a political taboo that has just been broken. It has been almost five years since the president of the Corsican executive, Gille Simeoni, pleaded with Emmanuel Macron to obtain the opening of negotiations on the autonomy of Corsica. In vain. Faced with the violence that has shaken the island for several days, the government has decided to take the plunge and open discussions. A door opened by the Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin in the columns of Corse-Morning.
Was this the only way to bring calm to the island? Or should we also see it as an electoral gesture, to try to ensure the Corsican vote? The question is asked. What is certain is that the use of this word “autonomy” is a novelty. Nevertheless, the discussions promise to be long. And this is also the argument put forward by Gérald Darmanin himself to try to put his position into perspective: he was this Wednesday, March 16, the guest of Apolline de Malherbe, on BFMTV. “First, I said ‘until autonomy’, that is to say that in my opinion, there are also other possible stagesbegan the Minister of the Interior. And this is not yet the conclusion of our discussions which will necessarily be long, necessarily difficult. We are not here to conclude the dialogue before starting it and it will not be done in two days. We may not agree, but we are opening this dialogue.”
We would therefore still only be at the beginning of the discussions, nothing would be recorded. In short, according to Gérald Darmanin, there is no need to make a big deal out of it. Things are a little more complicated than that, however. Because there is a fundamental rule, in rhetoric: to ask the question is to accept that the question arises. By announcing that he agrees to discuss the terms of autonomy for Corsica, Gérald Darmanin concedes that the government is no longer hostile to it in principle.
However, we are, it should be remembered, less than a month away from a presidential election that Emmanuel Macron is not sure to win. This should have imposed, it seems to me, to avoid as much as possible to take decisions by which a next majority could find itself committed, in spite of its disapproval.
From a formal point of view, the government has not yet taken any decision, but there are certain words whose symbolic power is such that the simple fact of pronouncing them already contributes to modifying reality. “Autonomy of Corsica” is one of those. Now that the word has been assumed by the French government, it will be very difficult – not impossible, but very difficult – not to consent to at least the opening of discussions. Pandora’s box has been opened. The toothpaste came out of the tube. One word was enough to change things.
And from there, no one can predict where the process will end up. The autonomy of Corsica has just burst into the field of possibilities. For better or for worse: I leave it up to everyone to judge. On the other hand, it would perhaps have been up to the next president or the next president to decide.