In Corsica, Emmanuel Macron’s word on the status of the island awaited by elected officials

2023-09-26 15:00:09
Gilles Simeoni (left), president of the executive of Corsica, and Gérald Darmanin (right), the minister of the interior, in the prefecture of Ajaccio, September 14, 2023. PASCAL POCHARD-CASABIANCA / AFP

They all make the same diagnosis: Corsica is not doing very well and there is an emergency. “We are on a volcano”, is even alarmed by Jean-Jacques Ciccolini, the president of the association of mayors of Corsica-du-Sud. Like the councilor of Cozzano, a village of nearly 300 inhabitants perched on the steep slopes of Haut-Taravo, Corsican political leaders, nationalist or not, are almost unanimous. “We are at a tipping point; either we move forward through compromise, or there is a blockage and tensions harden”they estimate in substance.

It is in this context of concern and expectation that Emmanuel Macron is expected in Corsica from Wednesday September 27 to Friday September 29. Official reason for this fourth presidential visit: the celebration of the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the island, with in particular on the program a tribute to two Corsican resistance fighters: Fred Scamaroni, who committed suicide on March 19, 1943 in a cell in the citadel from Ajaccio after being tortured by the Nazis, and Danielle Casanova, who died of typhus in Auschwitz on May 9, 1943, where she was deported in January 1943 after her arrest by the French police in February 1942 in Paris.

Memorial sequence, therefore, as the Head of State likes them, but, no one is fooled, the stake of this visit goes far beyond this framework. For Gilles Simeoni, the nationalist president of the Corsican executive, “the issue of this move is first and foremost political”. The leader of the island right, the deputy (Horizons) of Corse-du-Sud, Laurent Marcangeli, or even Jean-Christophe Angelini, the autonomist mayor of Porto-Vecchio (Corse-du-Sud), one of the nationalist figures opposing Gilles Simeoni share this point of view. Everyone is impatient with the presidential speech and his announcements concerning a possible change in the status of the island.

Read also: Article reserved for our subscribers Emmanuel Macron invites himself to the resumption of discussions on the future of Corsica

For almost a year and a half, Corsican elected officials from all sides and the government have been engaged in discussions at the center of which the institutional question inevitably returns. Opened in July 2022, following the riots which shook the island after the fatal attack on Yvan Colonna on March 2, 2022 in Arles prison (Bouches-du-Rhône), these discussions carried out under the leadership of the Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, move forward intermittently (five meetings in fourteen months), according to a rhythm that the upheavals of current events and the moods of the different actors dictate.

“A political media bubble”

You have 69.68% of this article left to read. The rest is reserved for subscribers.