Gérald Darmanin receives a delegation of elected officials from the island to move forward on the subject

The Minister of the Interior receives Corsican officials at a dinner on Monday evening at Place Beauvau. The constitutional revision on the autonomy of Corsica will be at the center of the discussions.

The Minister of the Interior will receive for dinner Monday February 26 the autonomist president of Corsica Gilles Simeoni as well as a delegation of elected officials. At the end of September, Emmanuel Macron gave six months to local officials to agree on the revision of the Constitution which will allow Corsica’s autonomy to be set in stone, a deadline which therefore runs until the end of March, but Gérald Darmanin decided to hurry things along. In an interview with Corsica morning, ten days ago, the minister put pressure on elected officials by expressing his “legitimate and calm annoyance” faced with the absence of a copy written by the Corsicans. Gérald Darmanin then warned that he would propose to them during this dinner a draft of the constitutional revision on the autonomy of Corsica.

The pressure was not well received by certain Corsican officials. “It is not up to Gérald Darmanin to hold the pen”, responds Gilles Simeoni in La Tribune Sunday from February 25. “It’s rude what Darmanin is doing, he has no business interfering in our work”torpedoes a Corsican parliamentarian who denounces “a chin-thrust provocation”. Even if another considers that the government is right to commit “because it is he who will have to defend the autonomy of Corsica before parliament, and it is not easy”. Delicate mission indeed, given the absence of an absolute majority in the National Assembly and a Senate dominated by the right.

A solemn declaration

However, this interview with the Minister of the Interior has had its small effect since the Corsican delegation will arrive in Beauvau with a solemn declaration, the result of a long day of negotiations on Friday in Ajaccio between the different sensitivities. Corsican elected officials agreed on “the constitutional recognition of an island community, historical, linguistic and cultural, having developed over the centuries a strong and singular link with its land: the island of Corsica”. Recognition accompanied by a resident status, to condition access to property on the island, but also a status for the Corsican language with the “implementation of real bilingualism” without forgetting a “fiscal autonomy” for the island of beauty.

No consensus, however, on the transfer of legislative powers to the Corsican assembly, outside of sovereign powers. This subject is debated. For Gilles Simeoni, “there is no autonomy without legislative power”when the local right opposes it. “We are not ready to lay down the law in Corsica”, sums up an elected official. In short, things are progressing but there is not yet the turnkey copy hoped for by the government. “Their joint declaration is a salutary first step, comments a close friend of Gérald Darmanin, but not enough”. Continuation of discussions at dinner time Monday evening, under the leadership of the Minister of the Interior.