Corsica is currently experiencing a crucial passage in its recent history, the Ajaccio Assembly has in fact approved the text of the statute of autonomy . The vote on the proposed new constitutional structure came on Thursday night after a long debate in the chamber on the "package" brought by President Gilles Simeoni.
A proposal which is the outcome of the so-called "Beauvau Process" , the negotiation which involved the Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, and a delegation made up of eight Corsican political representatives and led by Simeoni for months. The text provides, among other things, " the recognition of a statute of autonomy for Corsica within the French Republic which takes into account its interests linked to the Mediterranean insularity, to its historical, linguistic and cultural community and to the fact of having developed a unique bond with his land." Furthermore, Corsica is recognized as having "regulatory powers ".
The text was voted by a very large majority, but large sectors of the Corsican nationalist movement are against it . The skeptics' position entered the Assembly with the intervention of Josepha Giacometti Piredda, elected from the independent Corsica Libera party. Giacometti Piredda spoke of an operation that brings the Corsicans «into the French constitution as a sub-population, with a sub-autonomy without real powers . A strategic and political mistake by the nationalists."
Now the text will have to be validated with a popular consultation and then be examined by the French National Assembly and Senate, where there is very strong resistance to any form of autonomy for Corsica . The new constitutional process started in 2022, with the green light from Emmanuel Macron, after the revolt following the killing, in prison, of the pro-independence activist Yvan Colonna.
