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French-Corsican government talks to be framed in three working groups
Valls, Simeoni and Talamoni show disagreement over island's institutional future, agree to discuss on Corsican language status, land ownership, Corsica's government bodies · Corsican government hopes to obtain constitutional amendment
The meeting was the first one at the highest level after the 13 December election to the Corsican Assembly. An alliance of pro-autonomy and pro-independence Corsican parties (Pè a Corsica, led by Simeoni and Talamoni) emerged as the strongest force and allowed for the formation of an autonomy-minded government in the island.
The working groups will focus on the Corsican language, the island's government bodies, and land ownership. These, in fact, revolve around three core demands by the pro-autonomy and pro-independence parties: granting Corsican a co-official status alongside French, putting in place a statute of autonomy, and creating a sort of Corsican citizenship that limits the rights of non-Corsican French citizens to buy land on the island, in order to curb speculation.
Those demands are not only supported by Corsican-only parties, but they also received majority support from members of French parties in the Assembly of Corsica in a 2013 landmark vote. At that time, 46 out of 51 members supported the demands.
The new Pè a Corsica government now wants to convince Paris to accept a constitutional amendment that makes those changes possible. Simeoni and Talamoni argue their popular support gives them legitimacy to further those demands.
The French government, however, is opposed to introduce any changes in the Constitution in order to make possible these claims. Already in 2013 the French minister for Decentralization, Marylise Lebranchu, warned none of these reforms could be implemented. Manuel Valls agreed with Lebranchu.
At the end of 2015, Valls insisted that the French government will keep some "red lines" that will not be trespassed. The PM specified that the French government wants to talk about what had already been agreed with Corsican representatives, namely the merger of the three island's bodies -the territorial collectivity and the two departaments- into one single territorial collectivity, a move foreseen for 2017.
But Corsican parties argue it is indeed within that changing framework that their autonomy demands could be more easily met.