Live | La Corsica Linea and La Méridionale share the Corsica-Marseille links until 2029
The Assembly of Corsica voted on Tuesday to award the maritime public service delegation (DSP) from 2023 to 2029 to Corsica Linea and La Méridionale, which will have to share from January 1 the five links between the island and Marseilles. The report on this DSP aimed at guaranteeing territorial continuity between the Island of Beauty and the mainland was adopted by 32 of the 63 elected members of the island assembly.
The seven elected opposition autonomists and the seven separatists (6 Core in Fronte and 1 Corsica Libera) voted against, denouncing a rise in costs and the report of the creation of a public shipping company.
The 17 right-wing opposition politicians abstained.
This seven-year DSP begins on January 1, 2023 and is scheduled to run until December 31, 2029 for an annual cost of €106.7 million, compared to €93 million for the current DSP. An increase linked to inflation and the price of fuel, according to the autonomous chairman of the executive council Gilles Simeoni, who defended his report.
The Marseille-Ajaccio line has thus been assigned to the Corsica Linea/La Méridionale group for a daily rotation with every other evening for each company.
The Marseille-Bastia line returns to the Corsica Linea for a daily crossing, seven days a week.
The company with the red boats born from the ashes of the former National Corsica Mediterranean Company (SNCM), also won the Marseille-Ile Rousse and Marseille-Propriano lines while La Méridionale and its blue boats will ensure the Marseille-Porto- Vecchio. These three connections are provided three days a week.
The two private companies were already in charge of the ongoing DSP between Corsica and Marseille.
Corsica Ferries and its yellow boats, the leader in passenger transport between Corsica and the continent, had contested the conditions of this future DSP but were definitively dismissed by the Council of State at the end of November.
“We have demonstrated the need for maritime public service for the five ports of the islandthe”, welcomed Gilles Simeoni in response to criticism from the separatists of Core in Fronte and the opposition separatists of the Corsican Nation Party (PNC).
It is also guaranteed to have “secure as much as we could“with the European Commission this DSP, recalling that the European body, very attached to respect for competition law, was not convinced of the usefulness of a maritime public service at the start of the negotiations.