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French Cabinet Meeting on Corsica Delayed
A French cabinet meeting ended shortly after it started Wednesday morning, since President Jacques Chirac removed a proposed law from the agenda granting greater autonomy to Corsica.
Ministers left the presidential palace L'Elysee 30 minutes after they arrived, indicating an extremely short cabinet meeting, Agence France-Presse reported.
One day before, Chirac decided to delay the approval of the disputed law, which was presented by the Socialist Prime Minister Lionel Jospin, to another cabinet meeting.
France's highest administrative body, the State Council, said parts of the projected law gave Corsica's regional assembly too much power and could have contradicted the French Constitution.
The law, which planned to offer the Mediterranean island legislative and economic self-rule by 2004, was seen as an effort of the government to end the separatist turbulence there since the 1970s.
"It is a problem that will find its solution," said Jospin when returning from the cabinet session.
He said on Tuesday that the law will not change, as required by the president, and should be endorsed rapidly for debate in parliament.
The French government has to coordinate its policy with the president before any proposed law goes to the parliament for debate.
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