No white smoke between policies in Corsica. After two days of extraordinary session, the island’s assembly failed to agree on a single autonomy project, resulting in two texts on Wednesday evening, one of the quasi-nationalists united, the other from the right-wing opposition.
At the end of February, during the resumption of discussions on the institutional future of the island, stopped for six months, Emmanuel Macron had repeated that he was ready to include possible developments in his constitutional reform project, at the expense of the Corsican elected officials and the Ministry of the Interior to present him with “a proposal (…) before July 14”. He had also repeated his red lines: maintaining Corsica in the Republic and refusing to create two categories of citizens.
Long fruitless negotiations
After dozens of hours of discussions behind closed doors and exchanges in the hemicycle, two texts were therefore put to the vote in Ajaccio. The first text was signed and adopted (46 votes out of 63) on Wednesday around midnight by the autonomist majority of the president of the executive council, Gilles Simeoni, the separatist opposition of Core in Fronte and the separatist opposition of the PNC Avenzemu.
This document calls for the “legal recognition of the Corsican people”, “a co-official status of the Corsican language” and the recognition of the “link between the Corsican people and their land” via “a resident status”. He would like the political agreement reached to be submitted to a referendum in Corsica and to appear in the form of a “title in the Constitution consecrating autonomy”. This text in fact takes up the main lines of Gilles Simeoni’s report in which he set out his vision of autonomy for Corsica, namely that of a legislative power in all areas for the Assembly of Corsica, except those relating to the regal.
The right-wing opposition group Un Soffiu Novu voted against (16 votes) and Corsica Libera’s only elected separatist, Josepha Giacometti, abstained.
The two projects will be submitted to Gérald Darmanin
The second text, a motion by U Soffiu Novu, calls for a simple “power to adapt” French laws to Corsican specificities, without independent management of education and health and without transfer of taxation. It was rejected by two nationalist groups (autonomist and separatist majority, 39 votes out of 63). This opposition aroused the anger of the right-wing group which criticized Gilles Simeoni’s autonomist majority for not having respected a “non-aggression pact”.
In total, six proposals for institutional development for the island had been presented before arriving at these two texts. These must now be submitted to the Minister of the Interior Gérald Darmanin, who had called on the Corsican elected officials to present “the most unanimous proposals possible”.