The Corsican Assembly submitted to the executive two projects for changing the status of the community, and Gérald Darmanin led preparatory discussions in September. But the words of the Head of State are eagerly awaited.
He is eagerly awaited by the autonomists and the separatists. Emmanuel Macron is going to Corsica, from Wednesday September 27 to Friday September 29, and his remarks on the autonomy project designed by the nationalists will be listened to attentively. According to information from France 3 Corse ViaStella, it will notably go to the Corsican Assembly on Thursday for a speech to elected officials.
If the presidential visit is justified by the 80 years of the liberation of Corsica, occupied by the German army, the status of the Isle of Beauty stands out as the essential subject of these three days of travel. Because, since July 2022 and the death in prison of Yvan Colonna, which triggered a protest movement, a cycle of discussions was initiated by the State to reflect on the institutional framework of Corsica. A look back at the negotiations of the last few months.
February: Emmanuel Macron opens the door to constitutional reform
At the start of the year, Emmanuel Macron invited himself to the resumption of negotiations begun in July 2022. The head of state assures Corsican elected officials that he has not “no taboo” nor of “predetermined solution” on the institutional future of Corsica. According to the Elysée, he says he is ready to include possible developments in his project to reform the Constitution, then promised “after summer”. It is up to Corsican elected officials and the Ministry of the Interior to make a proposal before July 14.
If he assures that he is open to all the hypotheses mentioned by local elected officials, from autonomy to differentiation, Emmanuel Macron nevertheless reiterates his two “red lines”: maintaining Corsica “in the Republic” And “the refusal to create two categories of citizens”, according to comments since reaffirmed by the Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin.
July: Corsican elected officials propose two texts on autonomy
Gérald Darmanin had apencouraged Corsican elected officials to present “proposals as unanimous as possible.. But on July 5, after two days of debate, theThe Corsican Assembly fails to agree on a single project for changing the status of the island. The elected islanders then transmit two projects to the government and to Emmanuel Macron. The first text, that of the majority autonomist camp, calls for “legal recognition of the Corsican people”, “a status of co-officiality of the Corsican language” and recognition of “link between the Corsican people and their land” via “a resident status”. It plans to entrust the Corsican Assembly with legislative power in all areas, with the exception of those relating to sovereign powers.
The second text, carried by the right-wing opposition, calls for a simple “adaptive power” French laws with Corsican specificities, without autonomous management of education and health, or transfer of taxation.
September: Gérald Darmanin goes scouting on the island
On September 13 and 14, Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin went to the Isle of Beauty to prepare for the arrival of the President of the Republic. He speaks with the autonomist president of the executive of Corsica, Gilles Simeoni, before participating, in Ajaccio (Southern Corsica), in a general assembly of the island’s mayors. Emmanuel Macron “will have the opportunity to speak before you, before the Corsicans, on the conclusions, perhaps provisional, of a year of institutional discussions”he declared in front of the mayors.
“If there is institutional development, it is not for pleasure. (…) It is because we would collectively consider that, without that, we cannot improve the lives of Corsicans”, insists Gérald Darmanin. He specifies that evolution can go “until the standard is produced”that is to say entrusting greater legislative power to the Assembly of Corsica, “this which some call autonomy. A new framework which would require a constitutional revision, the option to which Emmanuel Macron said he was open in February, but which implies being approved by three-fifths of French parliamentarians meeting in Congress.
Gérald Darmanin does not comment on the content of the exchanges following his interview with Gilles Simeoni. But the latter comes out with the conviction that “the principle of a status of autonomy” is acquired in the mind of the Minister of the Interior. “All that remains now (…) is to hear and listen to what the President of the Republic will say”and to “give concrete content to this notion of autonomy”, he adds, however. A vast question that Emmanuel Macron will not be able to avoid.