Patrick Le Lidec: “I do not believe that Macron wanted a climate of tension”

Patrick Le Lidec is researcher CNRS at the Center for European Studies at Sciences-Po. He devoted a significant part of his work to the question of relations between the State and local communities.

In 2017, when he is elected, in what state of mind is the President of the Republic vis-à-vis the Corsican file?

He is in an open mind. During the campaign, Emmanuel Macron put forward the idea of ​​a “Girondin pact”. Concerning Corsica, he has made specific commitments. He said he intends to deepen the progress made during his predecessor’s tenure. He undertook to establish a dialogue, to ratify the European Charter for Minority Languages ​​and to promote the teaching of the Corsican language. On the basis of a report drawn up by Territorial Councilor Pierre Chaubon and adopted by the Corsican Assembly in 2013, he also undertook to ask the constitutional question with the idea of ​​achieving further statutory differentiation. Nevertheless, he set a condition for this: the abandonment of the reference to independence.

When he delivered the Bastia speech in February 2018, did he change his mind, from your point of view?

I give him credit for really wanting to meet the commitments made during the campaign. At that time, the electoral results give an indisputable legitimacy to the nationalists and I do not believe that his intention was to reach a tension on the Corsican file. The best proof is that the constitutional bill tabled in May 2018 and the examination of which begins immediately in committee in the Assembly, does provide for an overhaul of article 72 of the Constitution leading to the recognition of a right to differentiation supposed to allow the Corsican Collectivity to adapt the laws and regulations in the fields falling within its sphere of competence.

Why is the Bastia speech then seen as the starting point of a political blockage?

At the heart of the problem is, in my opinion, the competition between the autonomists and the pro-independence activists gathered within the victorious coalition in 2017. Building on the overwhelming electoral success of December 2017 on the common list Pè a Corsica, the strategy adopted by Jean-Guy Rather, Talamoni is, after the election, raising bids, at the risk of preventing the adoption of a text that can only be a compromise, since both the agreement of President Macron and the downstream of the LR majority in the Senate. He intends to make progress on the recognition of the Corsican people, on the official status of the Corsican language, on the amnesty of political prisoners and on the status of residents. However, prisoners’ amnesty and resident status are two stumbling blocks for the executive. Beyond that, Corsica Libera’s pro-independence activists are demanding for Corsica a status of autonomy halfway between that of French Polynesia and that of New Caledonia, with the power to adapt the laws and regulations provided by the Article 74 of the Constitution. These are lines that the President of the Republic does not intend to cross. He understands it all the less because he needs the votes of the senatorial right to have his constitutional reform adopted, and that the senatorial right does not intend to go any further than an evolution under Article 72.

Why did this constitutional revision, even “minimal”, not succeed?

In July, the examination of the constitutional bill began and is already well under way when the “Benalla” case arises. The Keeper of the Seals announces the suspension of the debates pending the return of a more serene climate. However, examination of the text will never resume. A commission of inquiry is created in the Senate on the Benalla affair. The Executive is very weakened and the project is delegitimized then buried. A new version – containing identical provisions on Corsica – will be tabled in August 2019, in the wake of the yellow vests crisis, but its examination will be immediately postponed for lack of prospect of a compromise with the Senate.

Beyond these institutional questions, the day-to-day management of the Corsican Collectivity has given rise to tensions with the State. How do you explain it?

This is a question that is always difficult to answer when you are not there to observe. Some said that the community had adopted a strategy of tension with the state to distract from the management difficulties associated with implementing the single community. From experience, I know that merging several communities is always a very expensive and complicated step, at least initially. The merger-absorption of the two departmental councils should not have facilitated the daily functioning of the CoC. Others rather attribute these tensions to a stiffening on the side of the prefecture. It is always very difficult to pinpoint responsibilities when tensions arise, including in a relationship. What I know is that, when he assumed responsibility, President Macron clearly intended to promote the success of the unique community due to emerge on 1^is January 2018. I have no clue to suggest that he was eager to interfere with its functioning.

On several occasions, the executive of the Corsican Assembly nevertheless had the feeling of being kept out by the state, which would have preferred other interlocutors: mayors, intermunicipalities …

It is always possible, when a dialogue is complicated, to look for other interlocutors. But I have no evidence to show that this was the case. As far as mayors are concerned, this does not seem specific to Corsica to me. It should be remembered that, during the yellow vests crisis, when everyone was wondering how things were going to end, it was the Association of Rural Mayors of France that came to the aid of the government. It is these elected officials who went to the roundabouts to try to reestablish a dialogue. Emmanuel Macron changed his speech and strove to rehabilitate the role of mayors, while at the start of his term of office, he rather said he wanted to govern with the intercommunalities and regions that he associated more with the “new world”.

There was clearly a backlash to the yellow vests crisis and a desire to rely more on the mayor-prefect couple. This development was also enshrined in the vote, in December 2019, of the Proximity and Commitment law, which strengthened the role of the municipalities.

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