AJACCIO: Thousands of Corsicans marched in Ajaccio, the French Mediterranean island’s capital, on Saturday to demand more autonomy, ahead of a visit by President Emmanuel Macron next week.
An alliance of Corsica’s two main nationalist parties, helped by disillusion with mainstream parties tarnished by corruption, swept to victory in a local election on Dec. 10 and has been pressing for talks with Paris.
Its leaders want more autonomy on fiscal issues, equal status for the French and Corsican languages, and the limiting of the right to buy property in some areas to people who have been resident on the island for at least five years.
The local prefecture said between 5,600 and 6,000 people marched peacefully in Ajaccio, while organizers put the number of protesters at between 22,000 and 25,000.
“It’s a historic moment, a march of unprecedented proportions in Ajaccio,” the island’s chief Gilles Simeoni told reporters.
Macron’s government has said it is open to some changes in its relationship with Corsica.
But ministers have rejected some demands, such as the language question, which would require changes to the French constitution which states that French is the Republic’s sole official language.
That has infuriated nationalist leaders, who had urged Corsicans to join the protest march, ahead of Macron’s visit on Tuesday.
The government is playing with fire by rejecting the nationalists’ demands, Simeoni told Reuters in an interview this week, alluding to the independence movement’s violent past.
Before laying down arms in 2014, groups backing Corsican independence had carried out more than 10,000 attacks over four decades, blowing up police stations and holiday homes.
These clandestine groups were linked to at least 40 deaths, either in attacks on government officials or as a result of infighting among rival factions.
Corsica has 325,000 inhabitants and accounts for less than 0.5 percent of France’s economy.
Corsica’s nationalists stage protest ahead of Macron visit
Corsica’s nationalists stage protest ahead of Macron visit
EU parliament approves 90-bn-euro loan for Ukraine amid US cuts
- lawmakers voted by 458 to 140 in favor of the loan, intended to cover two-thirds of Ukraine’s financial needs for 2026 and 2027
The EU parliament on Wednesday approved a 90-billion-euro loan for Ukraine, providing a financial lifeline to cash-strapped Kyiv four years into Russia’s invasion.
Lawmakers voted by 458 to 140 in favor of the loan, intended to cover two-thirds of Ukraine’s financial needs for 2026 and 2027 and backed by the EU’s common budget — after plans to tap frozen Russian central bank assets fell by the wayside.
Military aid to Ukraine hit its lowest level in 2025 as the US pulled funding, leaving Europe almost alone in footing the bill and averting a complete collapse, the Kiel Institute said Wednesday.
Kyiv's allies allocated 36 billion euros ($42.9 billion) in military aid in 2025, down 14 percent from 41.1 billion euros the previous year, according to Kiel, which tracks military, financial and humanitarian assistance pledged and delivered to Ukraine since Russia's full-scale invasion.
Military aid in 2025 was even lower than in 2022, despite the invasion not taking place until February 24 that year.
US aid came to a complete halt with President Donald Trump's return to the White House in early 2025.
Washington provided roughly half of all military assistance between 2022 and 2024.
European countries have thus made a significant effort to plug the gap, increasing their collective allocation by 67 percent in 2025 compared with the 2022-2024 average.
Without that effort, the US cuts could have been even more damaging, the institute argued.
However, the think tank points to "growing disparities" among European contributors, with Northern and Western European countries accounting for around 95 percent of military aid.
The institute calculated that Northern European countries (Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, and Sweden) provided 33 percent of European military aid in 2025, despite accounting for only eight percent of the combined GDP of European donor countries.
Southern Europe, which accounts for 19 percent of the combined GDP of European donors, contributed just three percent.
To help fill the gap left by the United States, NATO launched the PURL programme, under which European donors purchased US weapons for Ukraine, worth 3.7 billion euros in 2025.
Kiel called the initiative a "notable development", which had enabled the acquisition of Patriot air-defense batteries and HIMARS multiple-launch rocket systems.
European allies are also increasingly placing orders with Ukraine's own defence industry, following a trend started by Denmark in 2024.
War-torn Ukraine's defence production capacity has "grown by a factor of 35" since 2022, according to Kiel, but Kyiv lacks the funds to procure enough weapons to keep its factories working at full capacity.
Orders from 11 European donor countries helped bridge that gap last year.
In the second half of 2025, 22 percent of weapons purchases for Ukraine were procured domestically, a record high.
