French President Emmanuel Macron has proposed granting limited autonomous status to Corsica, a French island in the Mediterranean where nationalist sentiments are quite popular.
Source: Macron during a speech in the Corsican parliament, reports “European truth” with reference to AP
Details: “Let’s be brave and create Corsican autonomy within the republic. It will not be autonomy against the state or autonomy without the state, but autonomy for Corsica and within the republic,” Macron said.
The French president did not detail what powers might be transferred from Paris to a more autonomous Corsica.
He said he favored changing the French constitution to recognize the “specificity” of the island community of Corsica.
The constitutional changes will require the approval of the French parliament.
“In this way we will turn the page that was marked by the dark hours and can open another,” Macron added.
There is an influential nationalist movement in Corsica. In 1998, pro-independence activists shot and killed the top French official in Corsica, Claude Erignac. Other acts of violence were mostly low-level, often involving explosive devices planted in cars or buildings at night when no one was inside.
In March, the Administrative Court of Bastia, on the French island of Corsica, ordered the local legislature, the Assembly, to use only French, not Corsican.
2023-09-28 17:06:46
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