France's government and elected officials from Corsica have agreed on the wording that could be added to the constitution granting autonomy to the Mediterranean island, a region that is often at odds with the central government in Paris.
Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin and Corsican officials in the early hours of Tuesday said they had reached an agreement.
"This constitutional text foresees the recognition of a status of autonomy for Corsica within the (French) republic that takes into account its own interests linked to it being a Mediterranean island, its historic, linguistic and cultural community having developed singular ties to its land," a first line read.
Darmanin said both sides had also agreed that "laws and regulations can be adapted" on the island.
"We have taken a step towards autonomy" but "there is no separation between Corsica and the republic," Darmanin said.
They had made no mention of the Corsican language becoming official, he said.
Corsicans have long wanted more say on their own affairs, as well as official status for their language and protection from outsiders buying up land, two thorny requests that Paris has been reluctant to grant.
Supporters of autonomy are in the majority in the local assembly on the island of nearly 350,000 inhabitants.
'Semi-finals'
Darmanin said that registered voters in Corsica would be consulted on the plan, as would the island's parliament in Ajaccio, which is currently controlled by nationalists.
Corsica's executive council president Gilles Simeoni, an advocate for autonomy, hailed Monday's agreement as a "decisive step".
"The principle of a legislative power submitted to oversight from the Constitutional Council" in Paris had clearly been defined, he said.
But he said they still needed to hammer out the finer details of how this regional legislature would operate.
"We're in the semi-finals. We still need to win the semi-finals and the finals," he said, using a football metaphor.
Once the text in its final form has been approved by the Corsican parliament, it will then be submitted to a vote by the lower-house National Assembly and upper-house Senate in Paris.
Only if they both give it a green light will it then move on to a combined vote of both houses, in which it will need three-fifths of votes to be enacted.
'Dangerous step'
However, the right-wing and conservative parties are not happy with the agreement.
The President of the Senate, Gérard Larcher, and Bruno Retailleau of the right-wing group the Republicans in the Senate are "fiercely opposed to the legislative power".
"Contrary to official proclamations, the project on Corsica amounts to constitutionalising communitarianism," Retailleau wrote on social media platform X, calling the text a "dangerous step."
"Recognising a historical, linguistic and cultural community amounts to recognising the notion of the Corsican people."
Senator from southern Corsica-du-Sud, Jean-Jacques Panunzi agreed that the "law remains and must remain in Parliament," adding that there was a danger that other regions of France might ask for the same thing.
Historic moment
At the end of September during a visit to the island, President Emmanuel Macron spoke of a "historic moment", where he gave his backing for talks on autonomy and set a six-month period for discussions.
"It will not be autonomy against the state, nor autonomy without the state, but autonomy for Corsica and within the republic," Macron told the island's parliament in Ajaccio at the time.
Corsica shot to the top of the French political agenda in 2022 when widespread violence broke out over the killing in a mainland prison of the nationalist Yvan Colonna.
The independence fighter, jailed for life over the 1998 murder of regional prefect Claude Erignac, was stabbed to death by another inmate.
