Anticipating the Demographic Future of Corsica: Insights from Experts at Corsica Pruspettiva Conference

Reflect on the Corsica of tomorrow, relying on the expertise of researchers, to anticipate emerging trends. This is the objective of Corsica Pruspettiva, an initiative of the President of the Assembly of Corsica, Marie-Antoinette Maupertuis. This week was held in Bastia a first conference, dedicated to demographic issues.

The auditorium room of the Bastia museum was sold out on Tuesday evening for the first of the conferences in the Corsica Pruspettiva cycle. On the program, a major question concerning the future of the island: the demographic prospects of Corsica over the next half-century.

At the podium, three specialists shared the results of their most recent research. The first two applied themselves to drawing up an overview of the trends emerging at the global level, before the last focused on the case of Corsica.

François Gemenne, co-director of the Defense and Climate Observatory of the Ministry of the Armed Forces in France, focuses on what should permanently upset the demography of Western countries over the coming decades: climate migration.

François Gemenne • © FTV

But the one who is also an editor at the IPCC takes care to specify in the preamble: “very often we talk about these migrations in the future, as if it were a threat that we could still avoid. The truth is that it is something that already exists today. In 2022, climatic events have displaced 32 million people worldwide. That’s more people than have been displaced by conflict or political tension.”

We are on the cusp of a major transformation in living conditions

According to François Gemenne, “climate change will imply a different geographical distribution, and this, sometimes within a country. We are at the dawn of a major transformation of living conditions, which will induce a geographical redistribution of the population”.

“That, concludes the researcher, turning to Marie-Antoinette Maupertuis, seated to his left, it must be anticipated. And that is not our role. This is the role of politicians”.

Sébastien Oliveau takes stock of the demographic situation around the Mediterranean, using a series of graphs. A region where a major trend is emerging: an aging population, linked to a sharply increasing life expectancy, but also to a fertility rate which is tending to decrease, even in countries where it was very high a few years ago. a few years.

“In thirty years, most countries in the Mediterranean, in Southern Europe, in the Balkans, in the Middle East or in the Maghreb, will have a fertility rate of less than 2.1 children per woman”, says the university. 2.1 children is the fertility rate that guarantees the stability of a country’s population.

Sebastien Oliveau • © FTV

If Corsica is not his subject, Sébastien Oliveau nevertheless specifies that the island already has a much lower fertility rate, of 1.36 children per woman.

Finally, it is the turn of Antonin Bretel to speak, for the most awaited intervention: the one dedicated to Corsica.

An intervention that begins with a reminder of the current situation. In 2020, the island had 343,700 inhabitants. It recorded 1% growth per year between 2014 and 2020, the most significant growth in the metropolis.

Nevertheless, he takes care to specify, in the wake of Sébastien Oliveau, that since 2013, the natural balance has been negative. There are more deaths than births in Corsica. This population dynamic is therefore due to the weight of net migration.

In Corsica, the over 65s were 78,500 in 2020, they will be 134,600 in 2070

In light of these trends, and using the INSEE projection tool, Antonin Bretel imagined what Corsica would look like in 2070.

First element, the number of inhabitants. We would be 371,000, a very relative increase, in view of the surges of the years that have just passed. This is due to much weaker growth than today: 0.18%.

The auditorium room of the Bastia museum was full. • © FTV

More dramatically, according to these projections, in 2070, “Corsica would be the first region of France for the contribution of net migration to growth, and the first also for the contribution, negative this time, of the natural balance…”

Another element, which we can already see taking shape, is the aging of the population. “The over 65s were 78,500 in 2020, they will be 134,600 in 2070”. In fifty years, less than one inhabitant in two will be of working age.

“This projection does not take into account the mobility that we envisaged at the start of the debate”, takes care to specify Antonin Bretel.

Rather than an idea of ​​the situation in 2070, in the light of inevitable climate migrations, these three concise, clear and pedagogical interventions proposed a range of working hypotheses, valuable for elected officials and institutions present in large numbers, but frustrating for the béotiens. What the three researchers are aware of, who specify that “Foresight is not forecasting. We are not Nostradamus”.

How will the Corsican culture, the language, be able to cope with this significant migratory balance?

But in view of the questions that followed the presentations of the three speakers, the subject that most preoccupies the audience is “How will the Corsican culture, the language, be able to cope with this significant migratory balance?”.

What is taking shape, according to Michel Castellani, “it’s an aggregation of individuals, a mixture of Sarcelles and St-Tropez, with communities that ignore each other”. “If we don’t find a common sense, a common project that will make the binder”, assures the deputy of Haute-Corse.

Behind him, a young man worries that, faced with this cultural globalization, “the moral and social codes, in the Niolu, are equal to those found anywhere else in the world”, and wonders about the economic capacity of a poor region like Corsica to cope with such an influx of migrants.

Propose a cultural and linguistic offer to Corsicans and those who arrive

Marie Antoinette Maupertuis

Marie-Antoinette Maupertuis, in conclusion, affirms that, when one is elected, “There are short, medium and long-term projects. And, to shed light on long-term issues, we first need this prospective analysis, before proposing a political project”.

A project, assures the president of the Assembly of Corsica, which will look into the issues of regional planning, investment, housing, connectivity, internal and external mobility, employment, short circuits, but which will leave all its place to the offer that should be proposed, in terms of language and culture, “to the Corsicans and to those who arrive”.

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