Corsica waits

I lived in Moltifao, in the Asco valley. There I met the Corsicans. I lived in Corte, under the citadel, and in Casanova. The island changed me. I learned that you say hello to everyone on the cours Paoli, that the silence of the villages in winter is not emptiness, and that the word “community” is not a dirty word. It means the neighbours, the language, the dead you honour, the young people you would like to keep.

The word struck out first

That is the word the Senate struck out first. An amendment by Muriel Jourda, chair of the law committee, removed the “island community” and the “singular bond to the Corsican land”. Then the text, emptied, was rejected. In the gallery, the island’s majority stood up and walked out. Four years of Beauvau, a vote of the Corsican Assembly in 2024, 271 MPs in June. It all stops in Paris, one October night.

« If there was a defeat last night, it was that of the archaic Republicans »Gilles Simeoni, France 3 Corse, Tuesday

Naming without detaching

I hear the objection. The Republic is indivisible, and senators may say so. But a Constitution can name an island without detaching it, as it does for New Caledonia and Polynesia. The Corsicans were not asking to leave, they were asking to be named. They were answered with a text without them. What is left of a process when one party leaves the table?