“Words this year taste like ashes.”
From the first sentences, the wishes for 2025 from Gilles Simeoni, the president of the Executive Council of Corsica, took a dark turn.
He refers to the tragedy which took place on December 23 at the Le Lamparo brasserie in Ajaccio, a shooting there left one dead, Pierre-Louis Giorgi, a professional firefighter, and six injured: “Aiacciu and Corsica were in mourning on Christmas Eve: a young man, whose profession was to save lives, had his life tragically taken away, several young people were injured. Their families, their friends, all a youth come together and walk united by cruel mourning, at a time which should have been one of hope and celebration.”
“Words taste like ashes”repeats Gilles Simeoni, “and they seem paltry, and useless.”
In his speech, the president of the executive expressed several feelings: “Sadness and affliction but also incomprehension and anger” and asks: “What can we do against this multifaceted violence, which is devastating our island and threatening to take away our children? How can Corsica, barely a week apart, offer the Pope and the world the face of a land of fervor and peace, and to be caught up again by our worst demons? Are we then condemned to be a land of pain? I don't think there is another way to take it, we can no longer be content with words. . Wishes must, more than ever, be transformed into actions.”
“The Corsican Assembly will have to debate, at the start of the year, on the ramparts to be built against mafia abuses”
The words are strong. Gilles Simeoni points “the cult of weapons, the myth of the thug, the scourge of drugs” which “plague our youth”. Faced with this, he is putting forward ideas. “Let's make them retreat and disappear: through the law and its application of course, but also and perhaps above all through education, through exemplary behavior, through the revalorization of work, through solidarity between generations, through the construction of a healthy economy and a virtuous societal model.”
The president of the executive indicates that “the Corsican Assembly will have to debate and deliberate, at the start of the year, the ramparts to be built against mafia abuses and for a democratic and breathing society.” He claims that “in this area as in others, we will have to transform words into actions and decisions.”
Energy, health, transport: the successes of 2024
From words to actions. Gilles Simeoni wants as proof what the elected officials have “managed to do this over the past year” in certain areas and recalls that in the speech he gave last year at the same time, he cited “three priority sectors” where it was imperative to obtain results: energy, health, transport.
Concerning energy, he evokes the laying of the first stone of the Ricantu power station: “Its inauguration in 2027 will mean the end of Vaziu, a half-century fight in the name of the environment and public health.” But also the deployment, in parallel and “massively”, renewable energies: “Corsica is today, in terms of photovoltaic production per inhabitant, in second position in the world, just after Germany.”
Regarding health, the President of the Executive Council recalls that “we had a law on the CHU, guarantees on the reconstruction of the Bastia hospital and implemented the renovation of EHPADs and the opening of several health homes in rural areas.”
Regarding transport, he highlights obtaining a decision from the European Commission “securing the maritime public service. We awarded the air DSP to Air Corsica and Air France and we convinced the Vatican to choose our Company and its employees to bring the Pope and his delegation to Rome: a huge sign of recognition
and confidence!”
2025, “a decisive year” for autonomy status
Gilles Simeoni awards satisfaction based on words that have “been realized” in action but believes that “we must do this even more strongly in the coming year” because 2025 “is a year rich in symbols and decisive events” who we “invites both reflection and action.”
He recalls that 2025 “is the year of the tercentenary of the birth of Pasquale Paoli, u Babbu di a Patria, the one who knew how to both forge the Nation and inscribe it in values of humanism,
justice, and tolerance” but also “the year of the fiftieth anniversary of Aleria, a key date in our contemporary history, when a handful of men chose to say “no” to the policy of colonization, dispossession, and planned disappearance of our people.” An event where his father, Edmond Simeoni, played a leading role.
It highlights the past then the present and the future: “2025 may be the year when the French parliament will have to decide on the constitutional revision and the autonomy status of Corsica.”
“The coming year therefore promises to be decisive, he says. To meet the challenges that await us, we must generate new momentum and collective mobilization.”
Three initiatives to “create the conditions for this dynamic”
Gilles Simeoni declares that he “will implement, from the start of the year, three complementary initiatives aimed at creating the conditions for this dynamic”.
The first is political. He maintains that a “new impetus must be given to the action of the Executive Council and the territorial majority, around strategic issues: Padduc, language, land, major infrastructure, production economy and agriculture, solidarity mechanisms between citizens, as well as between territories …” He says he will propose “to the different nationalist currents first, but also naturally to other non-nationalist forces of progress, to participate in the definition of these priorities and their implementation.”
The second concerns the economic, social and societal level: “Autonomy must improve
our economic efficiency and our sustainable development model. Cycles of work will therefore be carried out with all mayors and elected officials, consultative institutions and the active forces of the island and the diaspora around daily themes, linking them to the constitutional revision and the status of autonomy. .”
The third initiative is administrative. The president of the executive council intends to mobilize “all the agents of the Corsican Community to offer Corsica and the Corsicans an efficient and effective institution.”
Gilles Simeoni concludes his wishes by specifying that in “this collective construction”, “a special place will be given to youth” Who “showed us, through her mobilization for language, that she wants to be an actor in her destiny.”
