What’s the story?

ONLY a month ahead of the French presidential election, days of violent protests have seen Corsica and its long-simmering nationalist aspirations unexpectedly brought to the fore once again.

The inspiration for the unrest is the imprisoned Corsican nationalist Yvan Colonna – once France’s most wanted man, now serving a life sentence for the 1998 assassination of Claude Érignac – who has been in a coma since 2 March, following an assault from a fellow prisoner.

In the aftermath of the 61-year-old’s hospitalisation, with several media outlets erroneously reporting his death, protests erupted across Corsica, where many continue to see Colonna as a symbol of Corsican resistance against the French state. Many of these protests have led to angry clashes between demonstrators and security forces.

In the town of Corte, Corsica’s former capital, several thousand protestors made clear their feelings on where culpability lay for Colonna’s assault, marching under the slogan “Statu Francese Assassinu” (“The French state is an assassin”). A ferry transporting French authorities was blocked for several hours from docking at a Corsican port, while masked demonstrators have faced off against police with rocks and Molotov cocktails and targeted government buildings.

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In response to the unrest, the government of French President Emmanuel Macron has indicated it is open to revisiting the subject of “autonomy” for Corsica, in the hopes of quelling the tumult that has rocked the island.

Prior to setting off on a two-day visit to Corsica on Wednesday, French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin stated: “We are ready to go as far as autonomy. There you go, the word has been said.”

Darmanin added that talks on autonomy would “necessarily be long and difficult,” but whatever the result, Corsica’s future “is fully within the French republic.”

Who is Yvan Colonna?

In 1998, Colonna – a former goat-herder and member of a fringe organisation of militant Corsican nationalists – participated in the assassination of the French state’s most senior official in Corsica. It was the first time a French prefect had been killed since the post was created by Napoleon Bonaparte.

France’s then-president Jacques Chirac described the assassination as “a barbaric act, of extreme gravity and without precedent in our history.” Nevertheless, it represented the twilight of nationalist violence on the island, which had largely been pursued by the National Liberation Front of Corsica (FLNC).

Colonna eluded authorities for several years, before eventually being discovered living as a shepherd in the Corsican scrubland, into which generations of bandits and revolutionaries had disappeared.

What motivates the protests?

While Colonna fell prey to assault by another prisoner, many of the protesters have been angered by the French state’s refusal to transfer him and his accomplices to a prison in Corsica, where they could be closer to their families. The ostensible justification for this is their classification as “special status” detainees, for whom Corsica’s only prison facility is not suitably equipped.

In the wake of the protests, French Prime Minister Jean Castex announced that Colonna’s special status would be lifted, but many of the protestors feel this to be too little, too late.  

How has France reacted?

With a presidential election only weeks away, the candidates have been both vocal and wildly divergent in their response. While Socialist candidate Anne Hidalgo favours more powers being given to Corsica, she argued that introducing the question of autonomy so close to the election was “irresponsible”.

Green candidate Yannick Jadot commented that discussion of autonomy “should have been done since the start” of Emmanuel Macron’s presidential term, adding that “full autonomy” is the only way to reach a “peaceful relationship between the French state, France and Corsica.”

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The left-wing candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon has previously stated that he endorses autonomy for Corsica based on that of French Polynesia “if [Corsica] asks for it”, while a spokesperson for the far-right candidate Marine Le Pen accused Macron of wanting to “sell off France”, arguing that the nation is “one and indivisible.”

How does Corsica relate to Scotland?

Though Corsican nationalism was for decades characterised by armed struggle, it has in recent years seen tremendous success engaging with the democratic process, particularly in the historic election victory of a nationalist coalition in 2017.

Many Corsicans have paid close attention to developments in Scotland; the 2014 referendum saw a delegation of Corsican nationalists travelled to Edinburgh as part of the Brussels-based European Free Alliance, representing 27 nationalist and autonomist parties, in order to support the Yes campaign.

Despite this, the SNP and wider independence movement has not engaged with their opposite numbers in Corsica to the same degree as with pro-independence forces in Catalonia. Whether recent developments in Corsica do anything to change that remains to be seen.