It is an almost obligatory passage for candidates for the presidential election in search of sponsorship or votes. Before Valérie Pécresse on Thursday, Jean-Luc Mélenchon in the coming weeks, the winner of the environmentalist primary and candidate for the presidency of the Republic, Yannick Jadot was in Corsica on Monday for an express visit to Bastia. If the meeting was cordial with the president of the Corsican executive, Gilles Simeoni did not however provide any official support to the candidate Europe Ecologie Les Verts (EELV) even if the elected autonomist recognizes historical convergences between the two movements.
Three decades of ideological convergences
Smiles, a frank and warm handshake. For an hour, Yannick Jadot and Gilles Simeoni met in the office of the president of the Corsican executive. The two men have several things in common. They were born the same year, in 1967. They imposed themselves in their respective political formation but above all the movements they represent, have maintained ideological convergences for three decades, to the point for ecologists to reserve on their list, at each election. European or almost, a place for a Corsican nationalist.
In 1989, Antoine Waechter welcomed Gilles Simeoni’s uncle, Max Simeoni, MEP from 1989 to 1994. François Alfonsi, leader of the Corsican Nation Party (PNC) succeeded him a few years later in 2009 on Daniel’s list Cohn-Bendit. In 2019, after a mandate far from Strasbourg and Brussels, he returned to the benches of the European Parliament in the team led by Yannick Jadot.
Meanwhile, François Alfonsi has joined Femu a Corsica, the autonomist party of Gilles Simeoni. The MEP, support of Yannick Jadot in the presidential election, insists on the convergences: “There is the need to direct Corsica towards more ecological projects with less impact on the environment. This defense of the natural heritage and history of Corsica finds a great echo among the autonomists in Corsica”, he adds.
“A peaceful relationship between the French State, France and Corsica”
Yannick Jadot wants “a peaceful relationship between the French state and Corsica” and says he is in favor of a status of autonomy, desired and requested by elected Corsican nationalists for years. “Ecologists have always been regionalists but we are for a new phase of decentralization, to trust communities,” said Yannick Jadot.
The EELV candidate also said he was aware of the situation on the island: “Today, there is a delay in the infrastructure in Corsica, there are major issues in terms of territorial continuity, on the control of water, waste.”
Common fights but no official support
Ecology is a concern at the base of the island nationalist movement, insists at the microphone of Europe 1 the president of the Corsican executive, Gilles Simeoni. “It’s a relationship that is historically old and which has materialized in the fights that have been fought, moreover often as a precursor in Corsica.”
“I am thinking of the fights against red mud in the 1970s or if we go back a little further, the fight against the installation of a nuclear experimentation center on the island”, he specifies. Cautious and anxious to preserve the dialogue with the future tenant of the Elysée, Gilles Simeoni does not provide any official support. “This proximity exists, it is not worth a commitment alongside the candidate Yannick Jadot but it is the DNA of our movement”, he launches.
“The fight against land speculation or the protection of the coast are strong markers of the nationalist autonomist movement”, he says. Yvan Colonna’s former lawyer concludes: “Beyond this story, it is also the fact that the world of today and tomorrow is and will be that of sustainable development, ecological transition and Corsica, because it is an island, because it has exceptional natural resources, because it is at the heart of the Mediterranean, is fully involved in these issues.”
A people to recognize
In front of the journalists, at the end of his interview with the autonomist Gilles Simeoni, and a little later during a press conference in a hotel in the city, Yannick Jadot repeated that he was for “the rapprochement of all Corsican prisoners incarcerated on the mainland” as provided by law.
In mid-January, he had asked for “the reconciliation without delay” of Pierre Alessandri, Alain Ferrandi and Yvan Colonna, the three members of the Erignac commando sentenced for the assassination in Ajaccio of the prefect Claude Erignac in 1998 and still placed under the status of DPS (particularly guarded prisoner). The campaign candidate sent a final message: “There is a Corsican people who have a history, a language, a culture, a pride and which must also be recognized.”