Corsican nationalist party set to win absolute majority in poll

Pé a Corsica poised to win on island but independence from France still far away

Corsican nationalists appear certain to win an absolute majority on Sunday in elections to a new assembly that will merge three former administrative bodies on the French Mediterranean island with a population of 324,000.

But don’t expect a Scottish-style independence referendum any time soon.

The Pé a Corsica (For Corsica) list, led by Jean-Guy Talamoni and Gilles Simeoni, won 45.36 per cent of the vote in the first round on December 3rd. Conservative lists trailed on 14.97 and 12.77 per cent. President Emmanuel Macron’s La République en Marche came in fourth, on 11.26 per cent. Extreme left- and right-wing parties did not make it to Sunday’s run-off.

The assembly election marks the nationalists’ fourth electoral victory since the National Front for the Liberation of Corsica (FLNC) laid down its arms in 2014. It is a significant turning point in the island’s troubled history, the culmination of a bullets-to-ballot box progression that will be familiar to Irish readers.

He refers to France as a foreign, albeit friendly, country. He believes the island will achieve independence 'before my death'

The FLNC and subsequent break-off groups started a campaign of bombings, assassinations, racketeering and vendettas in the mid-1970s. Hooded gunmen in camouflage uniforms held late-night press conferences in remote locations. The line between nationalists and organised criminals was often blurred.

Talamoni is known as “the Coriscan Puigdemont”, after the Catalan leader whose declaration of independence inflamed Spain this autumn. Back in 2000, Talamoni told this correspondent: “Everything we have obtained, we obtained through violence.” When the quote was taken up by the French press, Talamoni claimed I had misunderstood him. I kept the tape recording.

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/europe/corsican-nationalist-party-set-to-win-absolute-majority-in-poll-1.3320719