The dinner between the Corsican elected officials and the Minister of the Interior had not yet finished at midnight while the guests had sat down shortly after 8 p.m. in the small living room known as the “smoking room”.
Snippets of the proposal submitted to Corsican elected officials by Gerald Darmanin however, began to filter from dinner this Monday, February 26, Place Beauvau in Paris, between the minister of the Interior And the island delegation.
Corsica will be well included in the Constitution where it will be recognized as a territorial collectivity with autonomy “defined by a status which takes into account the specificities of the island community, historical, linguistic and culturale”, within the Republic. In line with the promise made by Emmanuel Macron who, in the hemicycle of the Corsican Assembly, on September 28, recognized the “singularity” from the island.
The text also opens up, in particular, the possibility for the CdC to be able to decide on adaptations deemed appropriate and to set rules in the areas where its powers are exercised.
Unsurprisingly, the idea of a local referendum is mentioned.
An article rather than a title
As was to be expected, too, the government seems to want to retain an article rather than a title as a framework for the inclusion of Corsica in the Constitution.
The minister plans to put in place all the provisions within the framework of article 74-1.
However, we will still have to wait before knowing the feelings of the eight Corsican elected officials making up the delegation led to Paris by the autonomists Gilles Simeoni and Marie-Antoinette Maupertuis, respectively president of the executive council and president of the Corsican Assembly, since at At the time of writing, the meeting was still in progress.
What will be the reaction of nationalists who demand expanded legislative power in the face of the government’s tighter project?
Knowing that the nationalist demand comes up against a national level strong opposition from the senatorial right and to large reservations from several groups in the lower house. While in Corsica, the president of Un Soffiu Novu, Jean-Martin Mondoloni, is also hostile.
This very political dinner is a major step in the so-called Beauvau process. Its aim, through the constitutional writing project presented by Gérald Darmanin, is to outline the contours of autonomy for Corsica at the end of two years of negotiations with the government.
Emmanuel Macron, last September, gave six months – until the end of March – to island political groups, from separatists to the right, to achieve a “agreement” with the government on a “constitutional and organic text” which would give Corsica “autonomy in the Republic”.
This evening’s meeting comes as twenty Corsican elected officials from different sides signed late, Friday evening, in Ajaccio, a solemn political declaration intended for the Minister of the Interior. A document which includes several proposals, the elected officials having nevertheless not managed to agree on an autonomy project for the island.
uextraordinary session of the Corsican Assembly could be held in mid-March, while Gérald Darmanin could be back in the island on March 14 and 15.
In the spring in front of Parliament
According to our information, the constitutional text should arrive in the Senate in first reading in April-May then be examined by the National Assembly immediately, before or after the European elections which will take place on June 9.
Between the start of the school year in September and the end of 2024, Parliament will meet in congress at Versailles.
A popular consultation on the organic law would take place in the first trimester 2025.
The vote on the organic law which translates and makes the constitutional revision operational in practice would take place in the summer of 2025. Before a return at the polls.