Status of Corsica: Initial bill maintained despite recommendations from the Council of State

"It has not been changed since the opinion of the Council of State, which is advisory," assured the office of the Minister of Regional Planning, in charge of the Corsican dossier. "The opinion of the Council of State ratifies the principle of autonomy, but uses terms that do not correspond to the terms used in the political agreement," including "symbolic terms" dear to Corsican nationalists, this source added.

The Council of State, asked for its opinion, had made several recommendations. When consulted, the text amended by the court notably removed the notion of a Corsican "community," "a singular link (of this community) to its land," and denied autonomous legislative power to the Collectivité de Corse. These recommendations were deemed unacceptable by Corsican nationalists, who rejected them and claimed to have received assurances last Tuesday from François Rebsamen that he would present the unamended bill to the Prime Minister and the President of the Republic. This commitment was confirmed by the leader of the right-wing opposition group in the Corsican Assembly, Jean-Martin Mondoloni.

An institutional showdown?

On Friday, Prime Minister François Bayrou, in turn, said he was "in favor of presenting to Parliament" the initial text resulting from the "crisis exit agreement," without amendment. However, the Republicans' Senate president, Gérard Larcher, had written to him to request that the government incorporate all of the Council of State's recommendations into the text.