France Considers Granting Island of Corsica Autonomy After Riots

After Corsica was rocked by a number of violent riots, French interior Minister Gerald Darmanin suggested the French government may be open to discussing autonomy for the island for the first time.

Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin spoke of a possible openness of discussing autonomy for Corsica, best known for being Napoleon Bonaparte’s homlenad, during a visit to the island this week.

“We are ready to go as far as autonomy. There you go, the word has been said,” he said.

Darmanin clarified his remarks later on French television, saying “talks [on autonomy] will necessarily be long and difficult,” adding that the island’s “future is fully within the French Republic,” France24 reports.

Corsica, which has been under French rule since 1768 but was not formally incorporated into the French state proper until 1789, has had a long history of the independence movements, including the National Liberation Front of Corsica which has conducted bombings and assassinations of French government officials.

One of those assassinated was Prefect Claude Erignac, the top French official on the island, who was killed by nationalist Yvan Colonna in 1998.

Colonna, who was sentenced to life in prison for the assassination, is now brain dead and in a coma after being assaulted by a convicted jihadist terrorist earlier this month. He had allegedly spoken negatively of the Islamic prophet Mohammed.

Interior Minister Darmanin labelled the attack on Colonna a terrorist act and attempted to ease tensions by promising to remove a special prisoner status from Colonna and others which has kept them from being transferred to prisons in Corsica.

Nevertheless, the brutal assault on Colonna, sparked riots in several Corsican cities, with the most recent in Bastia seeing 67 people injured, including 44 police officers, as protestors blamed the French state for the attack.

Colonna had asked to be transferred from his prison on the French mainland to a Corsican facility to no avail.

With the French presidential election’s first round just weeks away, French nationalist rivals of President Emmanuel Macron have slammed Darmanin’s statements on Corsican autonomy, with populist Marine Le Pen stating that move displayed “cynical clientelism” and insisting that the island remain French.

Valérie Pécresse, the centre-right Les Républicains presidential candidate, claimed Darmanin’s statement showed that the Macron government was willing to give in to violence.

Follow Chris Tomlinson on Twitter at @TomlinsonCJ or email at ctomlinson(at)breitbart.com.