Thousands of travelers were still stranded on Friday in Corsica because of a strike launched Thursday over the future of the management of ports and airports on the French island.
The island’s six ports were blocked at midday on Friday, according to the two prefectures of Corsica. According to the Mediterranean maritime prefecture, five passenger ships were waiting at sea near the ports of Ajaccio and Bastia, unable to dock, with around 2,100 people on board in total.
And no plane took off from the four airports of the island except those of the public service, intended for Corsican patients to go for treatment on the continent and operated by Air France and Air Corsica departing from the island to Paris, Nice and Marseilles. According to an airport source, this blockage has not been seen for 19 years.
“We’re waiting for the next information but for the moment it’s a long day, we don’t really know where we’re going,” Layna Gecko, a student whose flight to Bordeaux was canceled and who spent the night, told AFP. at Ajaccio airport.
“The next (flights) are for Monday, so it’s going to be a little long I think,” added Luna Piasta, a student who was also due to fly to Bordeaux. Some 130 people were housed overnight from Thursday to Friday in a gymnasium in Bastia, according to the Haute-Corse prefecture.
The Minister for Transport, François Durovray, said on Friday on FranceInfo that he was making “the resumption of traffic a prerequisite”, ensuring that he had “asked the prefect of Corsica to re-establish dialogue with the local community”.
This social movement followed the cry of anger on Thursday from the autonomist president of the Executive Council of Corsica, Gilles Simeoni, in the face of the reluctance expressed by a representative of the prefect on a device allowing the local Chamber of Commerce to continue to manage the airports and ports of the island.
The planned creation of two mixed open port and airport unions by the end of the year fuels fears of a transfer of management to international groups, and has been denounced as “a declaration of war” by the State by Mr. Simeoni.
There is “no inclination on the part of the State” to entrust the management of island ports and airports to private groups, the prefect of Corsica assured AFP on Thursday evening.
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