Corsican nationalists said yesterday they had accepted France's offer of unprecedented autonomy for their island in a crucial move to end 20 years of separatist violence.
The French Prime Minister, Mr Lionel Jospin, offered sweetened proposals to grant Corsica's assembly limited law-making powers - pleasing Corsican nationalists but stoking opposition fears that the unruly Mediterranean island's demands menaced France's cherished integrity.
"The text that the government has proposed takes account of everything we wanted," the Corsican Assembly President, Mr Jose Rossi, told reporters after meeting French negotiators.
Mr Rossi, a prominent nationalist politician, said France's last-minute decision to offer the possibility of a change in the constitution to allow the island's assembly to change laws passed in Paris had helped clinch their agreement.
"The prospect of a constitutional change is no longer a hypothesis. It is a case which is open and foreseeable," he said.
Hooded guerrillas have staged hundreds of bombings in Corsica in their long campaign for greater autonomy - but declared a ceasefire when the talks began in December.
Opposition politicians attacked the offer, echoing fears from ministers in Mr Jospin's own government that ceding powers to Corsica will prompt a string of demands for special treatment from regions like Alsace, Brittany and the Basque country.
"It is essential to recall that the Republic is indivisible. There should be no question of transgressing this principle," said Ms Michele Alliot-Marie, president of the Gaullist RPR party, in a statement.
The talks have proved a key test for Mr Jospin, trapping him between the demands of nationalists and members of his own cabinet who feared he was playing into the hands of separatists.
The Interior Minister, Mr Jean-Pierre Chevenement, warned Mr Jospin against caving in to "blackmail" by separatists and said ceding autonomy to Corsica would encourage the island's shadowy mafia groups.
Mr Jospin called a crisis meeting late on Wednesday to paper over cracks in the government. That meeting sweetened proposals that the Corsicans had earlier rejected, envisaging a gradual transfer of power to Corsica.