The island has been the scene of demonstrations and riots in the last two weeks after a jihadist prisoner seriously assaulted the Corsican independence terrorist Yvan Colonna on March 2
“We are willing to go as far as autonomy” for Corsica, French Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin told the Corse Matin newspaper on Tuesday, after two weeks of riots and strong tensions on the island over the violent attack by a jihadist prisoner on a Corsican independence fighter in jail.
«The question is to know what this autonomy is. We have to discuss it and that will take time », warned Darmanin, who has promised that this dialogue will take place « in the second term » of Emmanuel Macron if he is re-elected president on April 24.
Less than a month before the first round of the elections, Darmanin believes that it is “the moment” to open the dialogue on the future of the island of Corsica, as long as calm returns to its streets.
The island has been the scene of demonstrations and riots in the last two weeks after a jihadist prisoner seriously assaulted Corsican independence terrorist Yvan Colonna in Arles prison on March 2. After the attack, Colonna, sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of the prefect Claude Érignac in 1998, is in serious condition.
The minister has made it clear that the future of the island lies within the French Republic, as established by the Constitution. According to the minister, the model to follow could be that of French Polynesia, which currently enjoys greater autonomy than the Corsican community.
It is still early to know what the distribution of powers could be, but, if they reach an agreement with Paris, it is most likely that the police and the Army would remain in the hands of the French State, while Corsica could obtain more powers in economic matters. , social or health, for example.
Darmanin’s statements stirred up the election campaign. Conservative Valérie Pécresse, candidate for The Republicans, denounced that Macron “is giving in to violence” and considered that “order must be restored before negotiating.”
«Going from the murder of a prefect to the promise of autonomy, can there be a more catastrophic message? I refuse that the cynical clientelism of Emmanuel Macron breaks the integrity of the French territory: Corsica must remain French,” the far-right Marine Le Pen, second in voting intention polls after Macron, wrote on Twitter.
Left-wing candidates, on the other hand, were open to giving the island greater autonomy. Jean-Luc Mélechon, leader of La France Insumisa (the French Podermos), is in favor of Corsica having a status similar to that of French Polynesia.
Ecologist Yannick Jadot advocates “full-fledged autonomy, fully exercised” for Corsica. Jadot considered it “terrible” that there had to be “a drama, as usually happens in this five-year period, to begin to glimpse solutions.”
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