A “hand held out” to turn the page on violence: 25 years after the assassination of the prefect Claude Erignac, the Minister of the Interior Gérald Darmanin is on the move in Corsica. Monday, February 6, during the commemorations in Ajaccio, he assured that the government “reaches out the hand to the countless Corsicans of good will, loving peace and fraternity” For “trace together” a “institutional, economic, cultural route” And “for the cause of peace”. The minister confided in franceinfo. He explains what he hears on this “new page”, according to him, relations between the Republic and Corsica, and on this “hands extended by the government” towards the elected nationalists of Corsica, which is “a hand waiting to be shaken”.
franceinfo: During the ceremony to commemorate the assassination of Claude Erignac, you declared that you wanted to open a “new page” relations between France and Corsica. What did you mean?
Gerald Darmanin: I tried to open the hands of the government. At the request of the President of the Republic, I repeated that we were reaching out once again to Corsica, to the Corsican elected officials. We all know that the Corsican Executive Council is nationalist and wants a large autonomy for Corsica. We have been telling them for a long time that we want to work after hearing the voters vote in Corsica. Unfortunately, we see that despite unprecedented overtures from a government, for example when I mentioned the word “autonomy”, not because I want it, but because we say that we can discuss it, we realize that in front of us, we don’t have many respondents. There are always good reasons not to go further in the very serious discussions that we must have on the law, on the economy, on the social, on culture, on what type of autonomy we want. We tell them that we must gather around the table and that we must now discuss. They must understand that the hand extended by the government is a hand waiting to be shaken.
Is the climate right for that hand to be shaken?
I myself said that there was a bloody decade here in Corsica. Prefect Erignac is a symbol of this, but very recently there has been extremely strong violence. We can clearly see that even if civil peace is official on the island, there are here and there, and the Minister of the Interior is well placed to know it, resurgences of the resumption of armed struggle by gangs who want to keep the violence rather than democracy. We must all, in my opinion, be very attentive to this to avoid returning to embers. We tell them yes, maybe it’s time to talk again. I think we must now understand that the ball is on the side of those who want an institutional evolution on the island in the Republic. France has always said “in the Republic”, because there cannot be several types of citizens in France. The Republic can hear many things. In any case, the President of the Republic wishes it. It is still necessary that people get on the other side of the table to discuss it seriously. It is not enough to make slogans or graffiti to claim it. We must give an island of more than 300,000 inhabitants an evolution and a possible future in terms of housing, economy, society, culture.
Is the return of this nationalist violence on the island something that worries you?
You always have to be very careful. What do we see? We see first that here in Corsica, the parties that we call government parties no longer exist much, if at all. All of the elected officials whose voices are heard are nationalist elected officials, obviously with different degrees of nationalism. The most legitimate of them, since he was twice elected, is President Gilles Simeoni. Apart from President Simeoni, apart from the elected nationalists, there is not much. There are mayors. I had lunch this Monday afternoon with about thirty mayors, I often meet them. Often, these mayors are Republicans and have a deep attachment to France. However, in Corsica, apart from the two big cities, there are many small towns which are not often heard. The difficulty we have today is that you only discuss with elected nationalists because there are almost only them who make themselves heard or who are elected by the Corsicans themselves. Yes, it is a difficulty. If we do not discuss the future with them, Corsican youth may choose violence and this is absolutely what must be avoided.
