Corsica: the Senate rejects autonomy, the State must not go back on its word

The facts

Overnight from Monday to Tuesday, the Senate rejected the constitutional bill "for an autonomous Corsica within the Republic". According to AFP and Le Monde, the text, heavily rewritten during the sitting, was voted down as a whole by 181 votes to 134. According to AFP, this vote brought together both opponents of any reform and senators who did not want the version reworked by the Senate majority.

The text, adopted by the National Assembly in June, was the outcome of the so-called "Beauvau" process, launched in 2022 after the violence that followed the death of Yvan Colonna, as Public Sénat recalls. It recognised a Corsican "community" and gave the Collectivité de Corse a power to adapt certain national rules, the details of which were to be set out in an organic law.

During the sitting, senators first adopted an amendment by the Les Républicains rapporteur Muriel Jourda, chair of the law committee, which removes the notion of community and replaces it with the recognition of a historical, linguistic and cultural heritage. Corse Net Infos reports a vote of 197 to 84. An amendment by Jean-Jacques Panunzi, LR senator for Corse-du-Sud, then replaced the island's regulatory power with authorisations granted on a case-by-case basis, according to the same outlet.

Even before the final vote, the autonomist senator for Haute-Corse Paul-Toussaint Parigi announced in the chamber that the nationalists were withdrawing from the Beauvau process, before leaving the room. Gilles Simeoni, a leading figure of the autonomist movement, said the conditions for success were "clearly no longer met", Corse Net Infos reports. The minister for Decentralisation, Françoise Gatel, said according to AFP that the government "will continue to discuss" and would get back in touch with Corsican elected officials as early as Tuesday.

The positions at stake

The arguments of the Senate right deserve to be taken seriously. As early as July 2025, the Conseil d'État had expressed a reservation about the notion of "community", the website Politique Matin recalls. Bruno Retailleau argued, according to Public Sénat, that the text amounted to enshrining communitarianism in the Constitution. Gérald Darmanin, although a minister defending the bill, himself recalled that there is only one people in the Republic. Jean-Jacques Panunzi said the word "community" bothered him. For these elected officials, the indivisibility of the Republic and the equality of citizens before the law are not negotiable, and autonomy must not become a precedent opening the way to other demands.

Other voices expressed different reservations. RDSE senator Raphaël Daubet argued, according to Public Sénat, that a regime specific to Corsica created a breach of equality, and proposed rethinking decentralisation for all territories. Senators from overseas territories questioned the differentiated treatment of the island. The Socialists, through Patrick Kanner, had hoped for a "third way" between the government's text and the rapporteur's version, and now accuse the right of blocking the process.

On the other side, nationalist elected officials denounce the breaking of an agreement negotiated with the State for more than four years. Paul-Toussaint Parigi spoke of an "archaic majority" that had destroyed an agreement "patiently built".

Analysis

It must be said plainly: defending the unity of the Republic is legitimate, and the Gaullist tradition has never confused decentralisation with fragmentation. But that same tradition also holds to the word given by the State. The Beauvau process was wanted by the President of the Republic and carried out by successive governments. The text voted by the deputies was the result of a compromise, and it was to this compromise that Corsican elected officials had rallied.

The Senate was within its rights in amending the text. But by removing both the symbolic recognition and most of the regulatory power, then rejecting the whole, it offers no alternative solution. The risk is well known: when the institutional path closes, it is the advocates of rupture who take back control. Corsica has already experienced this spiral, and the stability of recent years owes much to the choice of dialogue.

The issue also goes beyond the island. The remarks of Raphaël Daubet and of the overseas senators raise a real question: can the Republic recognise territorial specificities without creating second-class citizens? The answer probably lies in a better-designed decentralisation for all, with common social and environmental guarantees. The principle of non-regression, removed by the law committee, went precisely in this direction: it protected Corsicans against any rollback of their rights.

What now?

The constitutional reform must be adopted in identical terms by both chambers, then approved by referendum or by Congress with a three-fifths majority. A few months before the presidential election, AFP considers success highly unlikely. The government promises to bring parliamentarians together in the coming days.

Rather than burying the issue, the State should quickly propose a method: take up the "third way" mentioned by the Socialists, maintain guarantees of social non-regression, and consult Corsicans, as the Senate committee itself had planned. The question remains open: who, in the coming months, will have the courage to renew a dialogue that the State itself had initiated?

Article written with the help of artificial intelligence.