Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin announced on Tuesday that he was postponing his visit to Corsica scheduled for Thursday for "a few weeks", stressing that "the conditions for a calm debate with the mayors" on public policies were "not met. ".
"In order to preserve the quality of the exchanges held so far and to recreate the conditions for the serene pursuit of the process of dialogue initiated between Corsica and the State, the Minister has decided to postpone his trip for a few weeks", according to the press release. of the ministry published the day after an interview between Gérald Darmanin and Gilles Simeoni, President of the executive council of Corsica.
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The Paris Court of Appeal on Thursday rejected a request for probationary semi-freedom from Pierre Alessandri, 64, sentenced to life imprisonment in 2003 for the assassination of the prefect of Corsica Claude Erignac, and who has been released since 2017, arousing the indignation of the elected members of the Assembly of Corsica.
A call to suspend talks
The next day, an association for the defense of prisoners had called on elected officials to suspend discussions with the government, which the independence party Core in Fronte, a minority in the Assembly of Corsica, had announced.
Femu a Corsica, the autonomist party of Gilles Simeoni, president of the Corsican executive, reaffirmed in a press release on Sunday "its determination to see the process of discussions underway with Paris succeed", nevertheless denouncing "the logic of revenge" which motivates, according to the party, the court decision.
This poses "a major risk to the process" of discussion, added the party, according to which there is "urgency to recreate the conditions for dialogue and trust".
Ten days after the confirmation by the Paris Court of Appeal of the conditional release of two former members of the Basque separatist organization ETA, now dissolved, the Corsican autonomist party called on elected officials, unions and Corsican associations to "take a stand in favor of the release" of Pierre Alessandri, asking the government to recognize that the decision concerning ETA was, in his view, "perfectly transposable to the situation in Corsica".
The League of Human Rights (LDH) for its part deplored in a tribune the decision pronounced, calling on the State to allow "to address in peaceful conditions the political dimension of the Corsican question".
A one-year consultation cycle
The Minister of the Interior, who had pledged in March to discuss the autonomy of Corsica, had set up a strategic committee in July on the future of the island, four months after the deadly attack in prison of the Corsican independence activist Yvan Colonna, sentenced to life for the assassination of the prefect Erignac.
The consultation cycle must be spread over a year, with one meeting every six weeks.
The second, which was scheduled for Thursday and Friday, was to be devoted to "financial speculation, town planning and housing", and the third, scheduled "before the end of 2022", to "the Corsican language and culture", had announced Mr. Darmanin.
For each topic, it is planned to list the various statutes in force in the neighboring countries and to evoke the possible “evolutions” to bring to the statute of Corsica.