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The president of the French Republic, Emmanuel Macron, has this Thursday proposed before the Corsican Assembly to reform France's Constitution to create a new status for Corsica, in the form of an autonomous territory that will be "neither against the state, nor without the state" and within the Republic, in a speech and a proposal that the French leader himself has described as an "historic moment". An autonomy that is "to be invented", envisaged as having the capacity to legislate on powers transferred to it from the centre, and with which the French government wants to help "preserve the soul and identity of Corsica, within the limits of the Republic". Even so, Macron's proposal to the Corsican people, to which he has referred as the "Corsican community", points out that the French Republic is "one and indivisible", rejects the notions of the "Corsican people" and their nation, and does not allow for any possibility of the Corsican language having official status in education and the institutions.

Macron's plan seeks to praise Corsica as "an historical, linguistic and cultural island community", but without going beyond the limits of being a "French community, within the Republic". A submission that also applies to the language, since the French president showed himself in favour of "the Corsican language being better taught and having greater presence in the lives of Corsicans", but without having a "co-official" status in education, public services or institutions. Macron also set out in his speech in Ajaccio that the continuity of Corsica within the territorial and legal order of the French state is "essential for the security and prosperity" of the island and recalled that it was the first French territory liberated during the Second World War, noting "Corsica's irresistible love for the Republic". In fact, Macron's visit to the island coincides with the eightieth anniversary of the liberation of Corsica in 1943.

Corsican nationalism, divided

However, the proposal which Macron has set out this Thursday is one that the Corsican nationalist movement - the parties Corsica Libera (CL) and Partitu di a Nazione Corsa (PDNC), which hold 23 deputies in a territorial assembly of 63 seats - have rejected completely, as they consider it an insufficient fit. In fact, they didn't even want to meet with the French president. On the other hand, Femu in Corsica (FaC), also deeply nationalist, but more moderate, has evaluated Macron's proposal positively, affirming that "the time has come to open a path of hope". The FaC has 18 deputies in the Assembly.

The Republican right, in favour

Meanwhile, the rest of the parties in the Corsican Assembly, the centre-right Républicains and La République En Marche, with 22 deputies in all, have shown themselves in favour of the possible reform of the constitutional status of Corsica, but supporting the defence of the centralist republican order and the "single language of the state", in reference to French.