After clashes between demonstrators and the police which left around forty injured in Corsica on Wednesday March 9, the president of the island’s Executive Council, Gilles Simeoni, called on franceinfo on Thursday to “create political conditions that will allow anger to subside”. Since the attack on Yvan Colonna by a fellow prisoner in Arles prison (bouches-du-Rhône), Wednesday March 2, numerous demonstrations have taken place on the island of beauty. Gilles Simeoni calls for the opening of a “new political cycle in Corsica”.
franceinfo: Are you appealing for calm?
Gilles Simeoni: There is always a very strong risk of accident. There has been a succession of extremely disturbing episodes since Sunday. It is true that we are constantly close to facts which could become dramatic and irreversible. Of course, as executive president of the island, but also as an adult since many of the demonstrators are young and very young people, my primary concern is that these young people do not risk their health and that the protests keep a peaceful ride. However, the best way to defuse this violence that is expressed today is of course to create political conditions that will allow anger and indignation to subside.
France Bleu Frequenza Mora revealed that you had a telephone exchange with Prime Minister Jean Castex. What did you say to yourself?
We actually spoke at length on Thursday. I repeated to him what I had the opportunity to say publicly for several days. I think that the return to calm requires strong, immediate, readable public gestures on the part of the government. This involves three steps. First, of course, the right to truth and justice in the case of the attempted assassination of Yvan Colonna. We need an independent and impartial look. We need to understand, beyond the facts themselves, how and why this was possible. Why had Yvan Colonna not been brought closer? Why was his attacker able to move freely, try to kill him in problematic conditions since there were more than eight minutes of aggression without any intervention?
The second point is the immediate lifting of the status of particularly reported prisoner – therefore the application of the right to reconciliation – for two other convicts in the case of the assassination of the prefect Érignac, Pierre Alessandri and Alain Ferrandi. This request was made in accordance with the law, not only by the unanimous assembly of Corsica, but also by almost all of the mayors of Corsica, by parliamentarians of all political opinions. On this subject of the right to rapprochement, Jean Castex told me that he would answer me quickly, in the hours or days to come.
Finally, beyond these first two points, there is a more general point since the anger that is exploding today in Corsica has its origins in an overall political context that has persisted for several years. The total number of votes claiming Corsican nationalism or autonomy accumulated nearly 70% of the votes during the last regional elections last June.
What do you wish ?
It is necessary today, at the highest level of the State, to record the need to open a new political cycle, to say clearly that there is a Corsican question. We must respect universal suffrage but, at the same time, involve everyone in this process, which aims to end a cycle of conflict and confrontation that has lasted almost half a century. We must open a new cycle by bringing everyone around the table. The institutional question, in my opinion, is of course destined to be on the menu of these discussions. We are bearers of an aspiration for the progressive construction of a status of autonomy, full rights and full exercise. I plead for all the living forces of island society to be involved, because we have a vocation to definitively turn the page on the logic of conflict to be in a construction which must be a shared democratic construction, which must allow Corsica to truly project ourselves with hope and, I hope, enthusiasm, especially for young people, in the present and in the future.