FRANCE: President Jacques Chirac suffered a setback yesterday when a tiny majority of Corsicans rejected the institutional reform he advocated for the Mediterranean island.
The result was extremely close, with the no vote winning by less than one percentage point - a mere 1,500 votes. More than 60 per cent of Corsica's 191,000 voters went to the polls, a turnout comparable to last year's presidential election.
Mr Chirac usually remains aloof from the workings of the government he picked in May 2002 after his re-election. But he made an exception for the Corsican referendum, calling for a yes vote on the grounds that it would strengthen ties between the island and the mainland.
The French leader failed to explain why he changed his position on the reform after the presidential campaign, or how the merging of two departments into one administrative entity would anchor Corsica more firmly in France. The government's chief argument, that centralising power in Ajaccio was the beginning of decentralisation in France, was tenuous. And the contradiction between Mr Chirac and the separatist militants of Corsica Nazione was unfathomable. They also called for a yes vote, on the grounds that it was a step towards independence.
At least 80 per cent of Corsicans oppose independence for the island, so aversion to the nationalists partly explains the victory of the no campaign.
The arrest of France's most wanted man, Mr Yvan Colonna, who is Corsican, two days before the vote backfired on the government, especially the Interior Minister, Mr Nicolas Sarkozy. Mr Sarkozy was the architect of the referendum and gave the order for the arrest.
Mr Colonna (43) is the son of a former socialist member of the National Assembly. He is accused of the fatal shooting of the prefect, Claude Erignac, in Ajaccio in 1998. Mr Sarkozy had known of Mr Colonna's hiding place in southern Corsica for a week. Police surrounded the isolated farm at 5 a.m. on Friday, yet waited until shortly before the evening television news to apprehend Mr Colonna.
Mr Colonna's arrest was viewed by many Corsicans as an attempt to manipulate public opinion by reassuring those who fear greater influence for the separatists. Nationalists who would have voted yes instead voted no.
In Bastia, the northern city whose mayor, Mr Émile Zuccarelli, led opposition to the reform, 70 per cent voted no. The citizens of Bastia feared that power on the island would shift to Ajaccio when Bastia lost its status as the seat of the Department of Upper Corsica.
Were it not for the death of Mr Erignac and the dignified, courageous bereavement of his widow and children, the flight of Yvan Colonna would have been almost comical. Since 1999, the French government has dispatched agents to Venezuela, Brazil, the West Indies, Madagascar and Italy to search for him.
Mr Christophe Lambert, the head of the police unit that arrested Mr Colonna, said he knew the overweight, hirsute man in the surrounded barn was Mr Colonna when he heard him speaking Corsican to his goats.