Status: 03/16/2022 04:48 a.m
After the violent protests in Corsica, France’s Interior Minister Darmanin promised the island concessions, including autonomy. But first the violence must end.
French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin has said he is willing to make concessions ahead of his visit to the Mediterranean island of Corsica, which has been rocked by violent protests. “We are ready to go as far as autonomy,” Darmanin told the local newspaper Corse-Martin. A prerequisite for negotiations, however, is that peace returns to the island. Under the pressure of explosive devices and the “omnipresence of the law enforcement agencies”, there can be no “sincere dialogue”.
However, the question of what autonomy for the island entails is critical, said Darmanin. “We have to discuss that.” This institutional issue will “logically be tackled during President Emmanuel Macron’s second term” – if he is re-elected in the presidential elections in April.
Darmanin wants to take a look at the situation in Corsica after the protests on the island that have been going on for two weeks. “The talks between government representatives and Corsican are intended to “create the conditions to enable Corsica’s development (towards more autonomy),” explained the Interior Ministry in Paris. Darmanin condemned the acts of violence of the past few days and urged calm to enable dialogue.
Attack on Corsican Separatists
The riots were triggered by an attack by a fellow inmate on the well-known Corsican separatist Yvan Colonna in Arles prison in early March. Colonna was serving a life sentence there for the 1998 murder of Prefect Claude Erignac. He remains in poor condition after the attack, his lawyers said. He is in a coma in a hospital in Marseille. The background to the attack is still not clear.
Colonna is revered by many in Corsica as the hero of the struggle for the island’s independence from France. Corsica had been rocked by assassinations for decades. The situation has calmed down in recent years, but many people in Corsica are demanding the release or at least the transfer of the imprisoned separatists to the island. They are also demanding greater autonomy from Paris.
French Prime Minister Jean Castex had previously cleared the way for two more Corsican prisoners to be transferred to the island. This has been a bitter bone of contention for years between the government and the families of the imprisoned separatists, for whom prison visits are complicated and expensive. “The entire Corsican people are rebelling against injustice and demanding the truth and a political solution,” said the head of the Corsican regional government, Gilles Simeoni.
A “certain responsibility” for the attack
Darmanin now conceded that the state had “certain responsibility” for the attack. This must be “protector of the people who are under his responsibility”. The government is obliged to “find out the truth about what happened”.
After the attack, there were repeated serious riots in Corsica. An initially peaceful demonstration of several thousand people in Bastia had recently gotten out of control. 67 people were injured, including 44 security forces. During the riots, some of the masked protesters used Molotov cocktails and homemade explosive devices. The police used tear gas and water cannons against the crowd.