IN her various trips around France prior to the country’s general election, the “hottest” welcome accorded to Marine Le Pen of the Front National came in Corsica.
Le Pen’s father had opposed Corsican independence in his years in charge of the party, and nationalists on the island had not forgotten that.
A group from the Ghjuventu Indipendentista – youth for independence – organisation fought battles with Le Pen’s security team in the island’s capital Ajaccio, and successfully disrupted Le Pen’s visit, sending her homewards to think again.
They and their fellow Corsican nationalists then did the same to newly elected President Emmanuel Macron, only peacefully and through the ballot box.
It is important to understand that France is one of the most centralised countries in Europe, and successive French governments, while allowing regional governance, have simply ignored the various movements for greater autonomy and independence within France, and sometimes even tried to suppress them with all the forces of the state.
They could no longer ignore Corsican nationalism, however, after a momentous election on the island in December, 2015. Often seen as a cradle of French democracy, the Corsican people voted for change – and what a change that might yet be.
For once, the various groups advocating autonomy inside France or outright independence for the birthplace of Napoleon Bonaparte came together and won a famous victory that put Corsican nationalists in charge of the island’s government.
The new president of the Corsican Assembly was Jean-Guy Talamoni, 55, a lawyer and a hardline nationalist who declared that he was the leader of the “first national government of Corsica since the 18th century”.
He was probably assisted in his campaign by the statements of former president Nicolas Sarkozy who said: “Mr Talamoni does not want the French Republic? Well, the French Republic does not want Mr Talamoni. This is France.”
Sarkozy and all the elite in Paris had reckoned without Talamoni who promptly dedicated his win to “those who have never accepted French rule … and have never ceased to fight for the survival of the Corsican nation”.
Talamoni then called for the release of political prisoners held for many years since the darker days of the Corsican equivalent of Ireland’s Troubles.
His colleague Gilles Simeoni became president of the island’s executive council, and his personal stance for greater autonomy has won him vast support on the island.
Now it is Macron who has to deal with the situation in Corsica. By next year there will be a single government for Corsica, with the two departements on the island merged into one. It is being seen as a real opportunity to demand the right to determine the island’s future.
In June the movement now named Pe a Corsica (For Corsica) confirmed that the 2015 election had been no flash in the pan. Pe a Corsica won in three of the four constituencies on the island in the French legislative election on June 11 and 18, totally against the trend on the mainland where Macron’s En Marche party swept the boards.
The result staggered the French Government and political observers across the country, though anyone following events on the island, where armed struggle for independence had ceased in 2014, could have told you that peaceful agitation was winning many converts.
After the momentous news of the election of three nationalist deputies, Andre Fazi, lecturer in political science at the University of Corsica, pointed out to Liberation newspaper that the nationalist movement can also “count on militant numbers unrivalled in other political parties”.
He added: “They are building, if not a political hegemony, at least a predominance that will be difficult to challenge.”
In France they listen to their philosophers and one of the best known at the moment is Professor Yves Roucaute.
On his blog he has hailed the Corsican results and provided a succinct analysis of what it means for the island and for France.
“What is at stake?” he asked. “The Corsican nation. Its spirit exists.
“Not a ‘region’ and its ‘regionalists’, but a ‘nation’ with millennial history, with manners, values and language, which gave the world, in 1755, the first democratic constitution … who refuses to be reduced to a tourist card or a playground for criminal groups.
“The nationalist vote? A vote ‘for’. A vote for the independentists and the autonomists who have reassured voters by their unity and their management.
“They have collective memories and interest, and plans for the future. The citizens applaud their urban development plans, their respect for territories, balanced development, the digital economy and adapted taxation.
“They want this ‘peace of the brave’ (to quote de Gaulle) with the amnesty for the political prisoners, and, through forgiveness, to prohibit hatred.
“The more the island takes hold of it, the more powerful it is. And France, too. But will she listen to the words of Corsican polyphony?”
Perhaps not only France but many other states need to hear the island’s song.
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