New Caledonia’s oldest pro-independence party, the Union Calédonienne (UC), has officially rejected a political agreement on the Pacific territory’s political future signed in Paris last month.

The text, bearing the signatures of all of New Caledonia’s political parties represented in the local Congress — a total of 18 leaders, both pro-France and pro-independence — is described as a “project” for an agreement that would shape politics.

Since it was signed in the city of Bougival, west of Paris, on July 12, after 10 days of intense negotiations, it has been dubbed a “bet on trust” and has been described by French Minister for Overseas Manuel Valls as a commitment from all signing parties to report to their respective bases and explain its contents.

• READ MORE: Other Kanaky New Caledonia politics

The Bougival document involves a series of measures and recognition by France of New Caledonia as a “State” which could become empowered with its own international relations and foreign affairs, provided they do not contradict France’s key interests.

It also envisages dual citizenship — French and New Caledonian — provided future New Caledonian citizens are French nationals in the first place.

It also describes a future devolution of stronger powers for each of the three provinces (North, South and Loyalty Islands), especially in terms of tax collection.

Since it was published, the document, bearing a commitment to defend the text “as is”, was hailed as “innovative” and “historic”.

New Caledonia’s leaders have started to hold regular meetings — sometimes daily — and sessions with their respective supporters and militants, mostly to explain the contents of what they have signed.

The meetings were held by most pro-France parties and within the pro-independence camp, the two main moderate parties, UPM (Union Progressiste en Mélanésie) and PALIKA (Kanak Liberation Party).

Over the past two weeks, all of these parties have strived to defend the agreement, which is sometimes described as a Memorandum of Agreement or a roadmap for future changes in New Caledonia.

Most of the leaders who have inked the text have also held lengthy interviews with local media.

Parties who have unreservedly pledged their support to and signed the Bougival document are:

Pro-France side: Les Loyalistes, Rassemblement-LR, Wallisian-based Eveil Océanien and Calédonie Ensemble

Pro-independence: UNI-FLNKS (which comprises UPM and PALIKA).

But one of the main components of the pro-independence movement, the FLNKS (Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front) — as its main pillar — the Union Calédonienne, has held a series of meetings indicating their resentment at their negotiators for having signed the contested document.

UC held its executive committee on July 21, its steering committee on July 26, and FLNKS convened its political bureau on July 23.

A ‘lure of sovereignty’
All of these meetings concluded with an increasingly clear rejection of the Bougival document.

Speaking at a news conference in Nouméa yesterday, UC leaders made it clear that they “formally reject” the agreement because they regard it as a “lure of sovereignty” and does not guarantee either real sovereignty or political balance.

FLNKS chief negotiator Emmanuel Tjibaou, who is also UC’s chair, told local reporters he understood his signature on the document meant a commitment to return to New Caledonia, explain the text and obtain the approval of the political base.

“I didn’t have a mandate to sign a political agreement, my mandate was to register the talks and bring them back to our people so that a decision can be made . . . it didn’t mean an acceptance on our part,” he said, mentioning it was a “temporary” document subject to further discussions.

Tjibaou said some amendments his delegation had put on the table in Bougival “went missing” in the final text.

‘Bougival, it’s over’
“As far as we’re concerned, Bougival, it’s over”, UC vice-president Mickaël Forrest said.

He said it was now time to move onto a “post-Bougival phase”.

Meanwhile, the FLNKS also consulted its own “constitutionalists” to obtain legal advice and interpretation of the document.

In a release about yesterday’s media conference, UC stated that the Bougival text could not be regarded as a balance between two “visions” for Kanaky New Caledonia, but rather a way of “maintaining New Caledonia as French”.

The text, UC said, had led the political dialogue into a “new impasse” and it left several questions unanswered.

“With the denomination of a ‘State’, a fundamental law (a de facto Constitution), the capacity to self-organise, and international recognition, this document is perceived as a project for an agreement to integrate (New Caledonia) into France under the guise of a decolonisation”.

“The FLNKS has never accepted a status of autonomy within France, but an external decolonisation by means of accession to full sovereignty [which] grants us the right to choose our inter-dependencies,” the media release stated.

The pro-independence party also criticised plans to enlarge the list of people entitled to vote at New Caledonia’s local elections — the very issue that triggered deadly and destructive riots in May 2024.

It is also critical of a proposed mechanism that would require a vote at the Congress with a minimum majority of 64 percent (two thirds) before any future powers can be requested for transfer from France to New Caledonia.

Assuming that current population trends and a fresh system of representation at the Congress will allow more representatives from the Southern province (about three quarters of New Caledonia’s population), UC said “in other words, it would be the non-independence [camp] who will have the power to authorise us — or not — to ask for our sovereignty”.

They party confirmed that it had “formally rejected the Bougival project of agreement as it stands” following a decision made by its steering committee on July 26 “since the fundamentals of our struggle and the principles of decolonisation are not there”.

Negotiators no longer mandated
The decision also means that every member of its negotiating team who signed the document on July 12 is now de facto demoted and no longer mandated by the party until a new negotiating team is appointed, if required.

“Union Calédonienne remains mobilised to arrive at a political agreement that takes into account the achievement of a trajectory towards full sovereignty”.

On Tuesday, FLNKS president Christian Téin, as an invited guest of Corsica’s “Nazione” pro-independence movement, told French media he declared himself “individually against” the Bougival document, adding this was “far from being akin to full sovereignty”.

Téin said that during the days that led to the signing of the document in Bougival “the pressure” exerted on negotiators was “terrible”.

He said the result was that due to “excessive force” applied by “France’s representatives”, the final text’s content “looks like it is the French State and right-wing people who will decide the (indigenous) Kanak people’s future”.

Facing crime-related charges, Téin is awaiting his trial, but was released from jail, under the condition that he does not return to New Caledonia.

The leader of a CCAT (field action coordinating cell) created by Union Calédonienne late in 2023 to protest against a proposed French Constitutional amendment to alter voters’ rules of eligibility at local elections, was jailed for one year in mainland France. However, he was elected president of FLNKS in absentia in late August 2024.

CCAT, meanwhile, was admitted as one of the new components of FLNKS.

In a de facto split, the two main moderate pillars of FLNKS, UPM and PALIKA, at the same time, distanced themselves from the pro-independence UC-dominated platform, opening a rift within the pro-independence umbrella.

The FLNKS is scheduled to hold an extraordinary meeting on August 9 (it was initially scheduled to be held on August 2), to “highlight the prospects of the pursuit of dialogue through a repositioning of the pro-independence movement’s political orientations”.

Valls: ‘I’m not giving up’
Reacting to the latest UC statements, Valls told French media he called on UC to have “a great sense of responsibility”.

“If tomorrow there was to be no agreement, it would mean the future, hope, would be put into question. Investment, including for the nickel mining industry, would no longer be possible.”

“I’m not giving up. Union Calédonienne has chosen to reject, as it stands, the Bougival accord project. I take note of this, but I profoundly regret this position.

“An institutional void would be a disaster for [New Caledonia]. It would be a prolonged uncertainty, the risk of further instability, the return of violence,” he said.

“But my door is not closed and I remain available for dialogue at all times. Impasse is not an option.”

Valls said the Bougival document was “‘neither someone’s victory on another one, nor an imposed text: it was built day after day with partners around the table following months of long discussions.”

In a recent letter specifically sent to Union Calédonienne, the French former Prime Minister suggested the creation of an editorial committee to start drafting future-shaping documents for New Caledonia, such as its “fundamental law”, akin to a Constitution for New Caledonia.

Valls also stressed France’s financial assistance to New Caledonia, which last year totalled around 3 billion euros because of the costs associated to the May 2024 riots.

The riots caused 14 dead, hundreds of injured and an estimated financial cost of more than 2 billion euros (NZ$5.8 billion) in damage.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

New Caledonian politicians who inked their commitment to a deal with France last weekend will be offered special police protection following threats, especially made on social media networks.

The group includes almost 20 members of New Caledonia’s parties — both pro-France and pro-independence — who took part in deal-breaking negotiations with the French State that ended on 12 July 2025, and a joint commitment regarding New Caledonia’s political future.

The endorsed document envisages a roadmap in the coming months to turn New Caledonia into a “state” within the French realm.

• READ MORE: New Caledonia’s political parties commit to ‘historic’ statehood deal
• Other Kanaky New Caledonia reports

It is what some legal experts have sometimes referred to as “a state within the state”, while others say this was tantamount to pushing the French Constitution to its very limits.

The document is a commitment by all signatories that they will stick to their respective positions from now on.

The tense but conclusive negotiations took place behind closed doors in a hotel in the small city of Bougival, near Paris, under talks driven by French Minister for Overseas Manuel Valls and a team of high-level French government representatives and advisers.

It followed Valls’ several unsuccessful attempts earlier this year to reach a consensus between parties who want New Caledonia to remain part of France and others representing the pro-independence movement.

The pro-French parties, for instance, have had to endorse the notion of a State of New Caledonia or that of a double French-New Caledonian nationality.

Pro-independence parties have had to accept the plan to modify the rules of eligibility to vote at local elections so as to allow more non-native French nationals to join the local electoral roll.

They also had to postpone or even give up on the hard-line full sovereignty demand for now.

Over the past five years and after a series of three referendums (held between 2018 and 2021) on self-determination, both camps have increasingly radicalised.

This resulted in destructive and deadly riots that broke out in May 2024, resulting in 14 deaths, more than 2 billion euros (NZ$3.9 billion) in damage, thousands of jobless and the destruction of hundreds of businesses.

Over one year later, the atmosphere in New Caledonia remains marked by a sense of tension, fear and uncertainty on both sides of the political chessboard.

Since the deal was signed and made public, on July 12, and even before flying back to New Caledonia, all parties have been targeted by a wide range of reactions from their militant bases, especially on social media.

Some of the reactions have included thinly-veiled death threats in response to a perception that, on one side or another, the deal was not up to the militants’ expectations and that the parties’ negotiators are now regarded as “traitors”.

Since signing the Paris agreement, all parties have also recognised the need to “sell” and “explain” the new agreement to their respective militants.

Most of the political parties represented during the talks have already announced they will hold meetings in the coming days, in what is described as “an exercise in pedagogy”.

“In a certain number of countries, when you sign compromises after hundreds of hours of discussions and when it’s not accepted [by your militants], you lose your reputation. In our country . . . you can risk your life,” said moderate pro-France Calédonie Ensemble leader Philippe Gomès told public broadcaster NC La Première on Wednesday.

Pro-independence FLNKS (Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front) chief negotiator Emmanuel Tjibaou was the first to face negative repercussions back in New Caledonia.

Tjibaou’s fateful precedent
“To choose this difficult and new path also means we’ll be subject to criticism. We’re going to get insulted, threatened, precisely because we have chosen a different path,” he told a debriefing meeting hosted by French President Emmanuel Macron.

In 1988, Tjibaou’s father, pro-independence leader Jean-Marie Tjibaou, also signed a historic deal (known as the Matignon-Oudinot accords) with pro-France’s Jacques Lafleur, under the auspices of then Prime Minister Michel Rocard.

The deal largely contributed to restoring peace in New Caledonia, after a quasi-civil war during the second half of the 1980s.

The following year, he and his deputy, Yeiwéné Yeiwéné, were both shot dead by Djubelly Wéa, a hard-line member of the pro-independence movement, who believed the signing of the 1988 deal had been a “betrayal” of the indigenous Kanak people’s struggle for sovereignty and independence.

‘Nobody has betrayed anybody’
“Nobody has betrayed anybody, whichever party he belongs to. All of us, on both sides, have defended and remained faithful to their beliefs. We had to work and together find a common ground for the years to come, for Caledonians. Now that’s what we need to explain,” said pro-France Rassemblement-LR leader Virginie Ruffenach.

In an interview earlier this week, Valls said he was very aware of the local tensions.

“I’m aware there are risks, even serious ones. And not only political. There are threats on elections, on politicians, on the delegations. What I’m calling for is debate, confrontation of ideas and calm.

“I’m aware that there are extremists out there, who may want to provoke a civil war . . . a tragedy is always possible.

“The risk is always there. Since the accord was signed, there have been direct threats on New Caledonian leaders, pro-independence or anti-independence.

“We’re going to act to prevent this. There cannot be death threats on social networks against pro-independence or anti-independence leaders,” Valls said.

Over the past few days, special protection French police officers have already been deployed to New Caledonia to take care of politicians who took part in the Bougival talks and wish to be placed under special scrutiny.

“They will be more protected than (French cabinet) ministers,” French national public broadcaster France Inter reported on Tuesday.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

French Minister for Overseas Manuel Valls, who is visiting New Caledonia this week for the third time in two months, has once again called on all parties to live up to their responsibilities in order to make a new political agreement possible.

Failing that, he said a potential civil war was looming.

“We’ll take our responsibilities, on our part, and we will put on the table a project that touches New Caledonia’s society, economic recovery, including nickel, and the future of the younger generation,” he told a panel of French journalists on Sunday.

• READ MORE: Leaked ‘working paper’ on New Caledonia’s political future sparks new concerns
• Other Kanaky New Caledonia reports

He said that he hoped a revised version on a draft document — resulting from his previous visits in the French Pacific territory and new proposals from the French government — there existed a “difficult path” to possibly reconcile radically opposing views expressed so far from the pro-independence parties in New Caledonia and those who want the territory to remain part of France.

The target remains an agreement that would accommodate both “the right and aspiration to self-determination” and “the link with France”.

“If there is no agreement, then economic and political uncertainty can lead to a new disaster, to confrontation and to civil war,” he told reporters.

“That is why I have appealed several times to all political stakeholders, those for and against independence,” he warned.

“Everyone must take a step towards each other. An agreement is indispensable.”

Valls said this week he hoped everyone would “enter a real negotiations phase”.

He said one of the ways to achieve this will be to find “innovative” solutions and “a new way of looking at the future”.

This also included relevant amendments to the French Constitution.

Local parties will not sign any agreement ‘at all costs’
Local parties are not so enthusiastic.

In fact, each camp remains on their guard, in an atmosphere of defiance.

And on both sides, they agree at least on one thing — they will not sign any agreement “at all costs”.

Just like has been the case since talks between Valls and local parties began earlier this year, the two main opposing camps remain adamant on their respective pre-conditions and sometimes demands.

The pro-independence Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front (FLNKS), largely dominated by the Union Calédonienne, held a convention at the weekend to decide on whether they would attend this week’s new round of talks with Valls.

They eventually resolved that they would attend, but have not yet decided to call this “negotiations”, only “discussions”.

They said another decision would be made this Thursday, May 1, after they had examined Valls’s new proposals and documents which the French minister is expected to circulate as soon as he hosts the first meeting tomorrow.

FLNKS reaffirms ‘Kanaky Agreement’ demand
During their weekend convention, the FLNKS reaffirmed their demands for a “Kanaky Agreement” to be signed not later than 24 September 2025, to be followed by a five-year transition period.

The official line was to “maintain the trajectory” to full sovereignty, including in terms of schedule.

On the pro-France side, the main pillar of their stance is the fact that three self-determination referendums have been held between 2018 and 2021, even though the third and last consultation was largely boycotted by the pro-independence camp.

All three referendums resulted in votes rejecting full sovereignty.

One of their most outspoken leaders, Les Loyalistes party and Southern Province President Sonia Backès, told a public rally last week that they had refused another date for yet another referendum.

“A new referendum would mean civil war. And we don’t want to fix the date for civil war. So we don’t want to fix the date for a new referendum,” she said.

However, Backès said they “still want to believe in an agreement”.

“We’re part of all discussions on seeking solutions in a constructive and creative spirit.”

Granting more provincial powers
One of their other proposals was to grant more powers to each of the three provinces of New Caledonia, including on tax collection matters.

“We don’t want differences along ethnic lines. We want the provinces to have more powers so that each of them is responsible for their respective society models.”

Under a draft text leaked last week, any new referendum could only be called by at least three-fifths of the Congress and would no longer pose a “binary” question on yes or no to independence, but would consider endorsing a “project” for New Caledonia’s future society.

Another prominent pro-France leader, MP Nicolas Metzdorf, repeated this weekend he and his supporters “remain mobilised to defend New Caledonia within France”.

“We will not budge,” Metzdorf said.

Despite Valls’s warnings, another scenario could be that New Caledonia’s political stakeholders find it more appealing or convenient to agree on no agreement at all, especially as New Caledonia’s crucial provincial elections are in the pipeline and scheduled for no later than November 30.

Concerns about security
But during the same interview, Valls repeated that he remained concerned that the situation on the ground remained “serious”.

“We are walking on a tightrope above embers”.

He said top of his concerns were New Caledonia’s economic and financial situation, the tense atmosphere, a resurgence in “racism, hatred” as well as a fast-deteriorating public health services situation or the rise in poverty caused by an increasing number of jobless.

“So yes, all these risks are there, and that is why it is everyone’s responsibility to find an agreement. And I will stay as long as needed and I will put all my energy so that an agreement takes place.

“Not for me, for them.”

Valls also recalled that since the riots broke out in May 2024, almost one year ago, French security and law enforcement agencies are still maintaining about 20 squads of French gendarmes (1500 personnel) in the territory.

This is on top of the normal deployment of 550 gendarmes and 680 police officers.

Valls said this was necessary because “any time, it could flare up again”.

Outgoing French High Commissioner Louis Le Franc said in an interview recently that in case of a “new May 13” situation, the pre-positioned forces could ensure law enforcement “for three or four days . . . until reinforcements arrive”.

If fresh violence erupts again, reinforcements could be sent again from mainland France and bring the total number to up to 6000 law enforcement personnel, a number similar to the level deployed in 2024 in the weeks following the riots that killed 14 and caused some 2.2 billion euros (NZ$4.2 billion) in damage.

Carefully chosen words
Valls said earlier in April the main pillars of future negotiations were articulated around the themes of:

• “democracy and the rule of law”;
• a “decolonisation process”;
• the right to self-determination;
• a “fundamental law” that would seal New Caledonia’s future status;
• the powers of New Caledonia’s three provinces; and a future New Caledonia citizenship with the associated definition of who meets the requirements to vote at local elections.

Valls has already travelled to Nouméa twice this year — in February and March.

Since his last visit that ended on April 1, discussions have been maintained in conference mode between local political stakeholders and Valls, and his cabinet, as well as French Prime Minister François Bayrou’s special advisor on New Caledonia, constitutionalist Eric Thiers.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

A leaked “working paper” on New Caledonia’s future political status is causing concern on the local stage and has prompted a “clarification” from the French government’s Minister for Overseas Manuel Valls.

Details of the document, which was supposed to remain confidential, have been widely circulated online over the past few days.

Valls said earlier the confidentiality of the document was supposed to ensure expected results of ongoing talks would not be jeopardised.

• READ MORE: French minister wraps up key talks in New Caledonia, returning late March
• Other Kanaky New Caledonia reports

However, following the leak, Valls said in a release on Friday that, for the time being, it was nothing more than a “working paper”.

The document results from earlier rounds of talks when Valls was in Nouméa during his previous trips in February and March 2025.

Valls is due to return to New Caledonia on April 29 for another round of talks and possibly “negotiations” and more political talks are ongoing behind closed doors.

He has denied that it can be regarded as a “unilateral proposal” from Paris.

The latest roundtable session was on Friday, April 11, held remotely via a video conference between Valls in Paris and all political stakeholders (both pro-France and pro-independence parties) in Nouméa.

All tendencies across the political spectrum have reaffirmed their strong and sometimes “non-negotiable” respective stances.

Parties opposed to independence, who regard New Caledonia as being part of France, have consistently maintained that the results of the latest three referendums on self-determination — held in 2018, 2020 and 2021 — should be respected. They reject the notion of independence.

The last referendum in December 2021 was, however, largely boycotted by the pro-independence movement and indigenous Kanak voters.

On the pro-independence side, the Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front (FLNKS, dominated by the Union Calédonienne) is announcing a “convention” on April 26 — just three days before Valls’s return — to decide on whether it should now fully engage in negotiations proper.

In a news conference last week, the FLNKS was critical of the French-suggested approach, saying it would only commit if they “see the benefits” and that the document was “patronising”.

Two other pro-independence parties — the PALIKA (Kanak Liberation Party) and the UPM (Union Progressiste en Mélanésie) — have distanced themselves from the FLNKS, which they see as too radical under Union Calédonienne’s influence and dominance) and hold a more moderate view.

PALIKA held a general meeting late last week to reaffirm that, while they too were regarding the path to sovereignty as their paramount goal, they were already committed to participating in future “negotiations” since “all topics have been taken into account” (in the working document).

They are favour an “independence association” pathway.

Carefully chosen words
In his release on Friday, Valls said the main pillars of future negotiations were articulated around the themes of:

• “democracy and the rule of law”, a “decolonisation process”, the right to self-determination, a future “fundamental law” that would seal New Caledonia’s future status (and would then, if locally approved, be ratified by French Parliament and later included in the French Constitution);
• the powers of New Caledonia’s three provinces (including on tax and revenue collection matters); and
• a future New Caledonia citizenship (and its conditions of eligibility) with the associated definition of who meets the requirements to vote at local elections.

Citizenship
On acquiring New Caledonia citizenship, a consensus seems to emerge on the minimum time of residence: it would be “10 to 15” years with other criteria such as an “exam” to ascertain the candidate’s knowledge and respect of cultural “values and specificities”.

Every person born in New Caledonia, children and spouses of qualified citizens, would also automatically qualify for New Caledonia’s citizenship.

Power-sharing
On power-sharing, the draft also touches on the “sovereign” powers (international relations, defence, law and order, justice, currency) which would remain within the French realm, but in a stronger association for New Caledonia.

All other powers, regarded as “non-sovereign”, would remain under direct control of New Caledonia as they have already been transferred, gradually, to New Caledonia, over the past 27 years, under the Nouméa Accord.

New Caledonia would also be consulted on all negotiations related to the Pacific islands region and would get representation at European Union level.

Local diplomats would also be trained under France’s Ministry of Europe and Foreign Affairs.

Under the Nouméa Accord, the training process was already initiated more than 10 years ago with New Caledonian representatives appointed and hosted at French embassies in the region — Fiji, New Zealand, Australia.

A local “strategic committee” would also be set up on defence matters.

However, despite long-time FLNKS demands, this would not allow for a seat at the United Nations.

In terms of currency, the present French Pacific Francs (CFP, XPF) would be abolished for a new currency that would remain pegged to the Euro, provided France’s other two Pacific territories (French Polynesia, Wallis-and-Futuna — which are also using the CFP) agree.

Reinforced provincial powers
A new proposal, in terms of reinforced provincial powers, would be to grant each of New Caledonia’s three provinces (North, South and Loyalty Islands) the capacity — currently held by New Caledonia’s government — to generate and collect its own taxes.

Each province would then re-distribute their collected tax revenues to the central government and municipalities.

This is also reported to be a sensitive point during the talks, since about 80 percent of New Caledonia’s wealth is located in the Southern Province, which also generates more than 90 percent of all of New Caledonia’s tax revenues.

This is perceived as a concession to pro-France parties, which are calling for an “internal federation” model for New Caledonia, a prospect strongly opposed by pro-independence parties who are denouncing what they liken to some kind of “partition” for the French Pacific dependency.

In the currently discussed project, the representation at the Congress (Parliament) of New Caledonia would be revised among the three provinces to better reflect their respective weight according to demographic changes.

The representation would be re-assessed and possibly modified after each population census.

Under the proposed text, New Caledonia’s government would remain based on the notion of “collegiality”.

Future referendum — no more just ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to independence
The current working paper, on the right to self-determination, suggests that any future referendum on self-determination no longer has a specified deadline, but should take place after a “stabilisation and reconstruction” phase.

It would no longer ask the binary question of “yes” or “no” to independence and full sovereignty, but rather seek the approval of a “comprehensive project”.

To activate a referendum, the approval of at least three fifths of New Caledonia’s 54-seat Congress would be needed.

The Congress’s current makeup, almost equally split in two between pro-France and pro-independence parties, this 3/5th threshold could only be found if there is a consensual vote beyond party lines.

Some of the FLNKS’s earlier demands, like having its president Christian Téin (elected in absentia in August 2024 ) part of the talks, now seem to have been dropped.

Téin was arrested in June 2024 for alleged involvement in the May 2024 insurrectional riots that caused 14 dead (including two French gendarmes), hundreds of injured, thousands of jobless and the destruction of several hundred businesses for a total estimated damage of 2.2 billion euros (NZ$4.3 billion).

Four days after his arrest, Téin was transferred from New Caledonia to mainland France.

Although he is still remanded in custody pending his trial (for alleged involvement in organised criminal-related acts), his case was recently transferred from the jurisdiction of judges in Nouméa to mainland France magistrates.

Union Calédonienne president and pro-independence front man Emmanuel Tjibaou told public broadcaster NC la 1ère yesterday he was in regular contact with Téin from his jail in Mulhouse (northeastern France).

Another recent development that could also be perceived as a concession to the FLNKS is that last week, France announced the replacement of French High commissioner Louis Le Franc, France’s representative and man in charge in Nouméa during last year’s riots.

‘We are facing a decisive moment’, says Valls
Valls said he remained hopeful that despite “all positions remaining at present still far from each other . . . evolutions are still possible”.

“I reaffirm the (French) State’s full commitment to pursue this approach, in the spirit of the Matignon and Nouméa Accords (signed respectively in 1988 and 1998) to build together a united, appeased and prosperous New Caledonia,” Valls concluded.

“We are facing a decisive moment for the future of New Caledonia, which is confronted with a particularly grave economic and social situation. Civil peace remains fragile.”

The much sought-after agreement, which has been at the centre of political talks since they resumed in early 2025 after a three-year hiatus, is supposed to replace the Nouméa Accord from 1998.

The 1998 pact, which outlines the notion of gradual transfer of sovereign powers from France to new Caledonia, but also the notion of “common destiny”, stipulates that after three referendums on self-determination resulting in a majority of “no”, then the political partners are to meet and “discuss the situation thus created”.

Determination, anxiety and hope
On all sides of the political landscape, ahead of any outcome for the crucial talks, the current atmosphere is a mix of determination, anxiety and hope, with a touch of disillusionment.

The pro-independence movement’s Emmanuel Tjibaou has to manage a sometimes radical base.

He told NC la 1ère that the main objective remained “the path to sovereignty”.

Within the pro-France camp, there is also defiance towards Vall’s approach and expected results.

Among their ranks, one lingering angst, founded or not, is to see an agreement being concluded that would not respond to their expectations of New Caledonia remaining part of France.

This worst-case scenario, in their view, would bring back sad memories of Algeria’s pre-independence process decades ago.

On 4 June 1958, in the midst of its war against Algeria’s National Liberation Front (FLN), French President General De Gaulle, while on a visit to Algiers, shouted a resounding “Je vous ai compris!” (“I have understood you”) to a crowd of cheering pro-France and French Algerians who were convinced at the time that their voice had been heard in favour of French Algeria.

On 19 March 1962, after years of a bloody war, the Evian Accords were signed, paving the way for Algeria’s independence on July 3.

“I had to take precautions, I had to proceed progressively and this is how we made it”, De Gaulle explained to the French daily Le Monde in 1966.

In the meantime, in an atmosphere of fear and violence, an estimated 700,000 French citizens from Algeria were “repatriated” by boat to mainland France.

As an alternative posed to French nationals at the time, FLN’s slogan was “la valise ou le cercueil” (“the suitcase or the coffin”).

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

Twenty New Caledonian children who suffered the shock of Port Vila’s 7.3 magnitude earthquake have been repatriated from Vanuatu on board a French military CASA aircraft.

The special operation was conducted on Thursday, as part of relief operations conducted by the Nouméa-based French Armed Forces in New Caledonia in response to the destructive quake that shook the Vanuatu capital, where several buildings have collapsed.

The group of children, from northern New Caledonia (Népoui, Koné, Pouembout, and Poia), are aged between 8 and 14.

• READ MORE: Vanuatu snap election pushed back after earthquake
• Vanuatu earthquake: Last repatriation from Port Vila, water in short supply
• Other Vanuatu earthquake reports

They were visiting Vanuatu as part of a holiday camp organised by their sports association.

They were supervised by four adults.

One of them, Melissa Rangassamy, told local Radio Rythme Bleu upon arrival in Nouméa that the group was having a picnic on a Port Vila beach when the ground started to shake violently.

“Children were falling to the ground, everyone was falling all around, it was panic. We told the children not to move. At the time, they were in shock.

“We gathered them all, put them on the buses, and went straight up to a higher place,” she said.

“It’s so good to come back home.”

More evacuation flights
The French High Commission in New Caledonia said a special psychological assistance unit was available to anyone who should need help.

More flights to evacuate French nationals would be carried out of Port Vila to New Caledonia, French Ambassador to Vanuatu Jean-Baptiste Jeangène Vilmer said.

Vanuatu hosts a significant French community, estimated at more than 3300 French citizens, including from New Caledonia.

New Caledonia is also home to a strong ni-Vanuatu community of about 5000.

One French national confirmed among fatalities
A Vanuatu-born French citizen has been confirmed dead.

He was found under the rubble of one of the hardest-hit buildings in central Port Vila.

He has been identified as Vincent Goiset, who belongs to a long-established, affluent Vanuatu family of Vietnamese origin.

The total death toll from the December 17 earthquake stood at 15 on Friday, but was still likely to rise.

France, Australia and New Zealand: 100 percent ‘FRANZ’
Both Australia and New Zealand, through their armed forces, have deployed relief — including urban search and rescue teams — in a bid to find survivors under the collapsed buildings.

The two countries are part of a tripartite set-up called “FRANZ” (France, Australia, New Zealand).

Signed in 1992, the agreement enforces a policy of systematic coordination between the three armed forces when they operate to bring assistance to Pacific island countries affected by a natural disaster.

As part of the FRANZ set-up, the French contribution included an initial reconnaissance flight from its Nouméa-based Falcon-200 jet (known as the Gardian) at daybreak on Wednesday, mostly to assess the Bauerfield airport.

Port Vila is only 500km away from Nouméa.

Later that day, a French PUMA helicopter transported emergency relief and personnel (including experts in buildings structural assessment, telecom and essential supplies such as water and electricity) to Port Vila to further assess the situation.

The small military CASA aircraft also operated a number of rotations between Nouméa and Port Vila, bringing more relief supplies (including food rations, water, and IT equipment) and returning with evacuees.

The French High Commission also said if needed, a Nouméa-based surveillance frigate Vendémiaire and the overseas assistance vessel d’Entrecasteaux were placed on stand-by mode “ready to set sail from Nouméa to Vanuatu within 72 and 96 hours, respectively”.

Embassies ‘flattened’
Following the Tuesday quake, four embassies in Port Vila (New Zealand, United Kingdom, the United States and France), all under the same roof, had been temporarily relocated to their respective chiefs of mission.

Their offices, once located in a three-storey building, collapsed and were “flattened”, the French ambassador said.

Vanuatu’s caretaker Prime Minister Charlot Salwaï has announced a state of emergency at least until Christmas and the Vanuatu snap election has been postponed from January 14 to 16.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

New Caledonia’s largest pro-independence party, the Union Calédonienne (UC), has unveiled the main outcome of its congress last weekend, including its plans for the French Pacific territory’s political future.

Speaking at a news conference on Thursday in Nouméa, the party’s newly-elected executive bureau, now headed by Emmanuel Tjibaou, debriefed the media about the main resolutions made during its congress.

One of the motions was specifically concerning a timeframe for New Caledonia’s road to independence.

• READ MORE: Mixed reactions to Tjibaou’s election to key Kanak pro-independence party
• Other Kanaky New Caledonia reports

Tjibaou said UC now envisaged that one of the milestones on this road to sovereignty would be the signing of a “Kanaky Agreement”, at the latest on 24 September 2025 — a highly symbolic date as this was the day of France’s annexation of New Caledonia in 1853.

‘Kanaky Agreement’ by 24 September 2025?
This, he said, would mark the beginning of a five-year “transition period” from “2025 to 2030” that would be concluded by New Caledonia becoming fully sovereign under a status yet to be defined.

Several wordings have recently been advanced by stakeholders from around the political spectrum.

Depending on the pro-independence and pro-France sympathies, these have varied from “shared sovereignty”, “independence in partnership”, “independence-association” and, more recently, from the also divided pro-France loyalists camp, an “internal federalism” (Le Rassemblement-LR party) or a “territorial federation” (Les Loyalistes).

Charismatic pro-independence leader Jean-Marie Tjibaou, Emmanuel’s father who was assassinated in 1989, was known for being an advocate of a relativist approach to the term “independence”, to which he usually preferred to adjunct the pragmatic term “inter-dependence”.

Negotiations between all political parties and the French State are expected to begin in the next few weeks.

The talks (between pro-independence, anti-independence parties and the French State) are scheduled in such a way that all parties manage to reach a comprehensive and inclusive political agreement no later than March 2025.

The talks had completely stalled after the pro-indeoendence riots broke out on 13 May 2024.

Over the past three years, following three referendums (2018, 2020, 2021, the latter being strongly challenged by the pro-independence side) on the question of independence (all yielding a majority in favour of New Caledonia remaining part of France), there had been several attempts to hold inclusive talks in order to discuss New Caledonia’s political future.

But UC and other parties (including pro-France and pro-independence) did not manage to sit at the same table.

Speaking to journalists, Emmanuel Tjibaou confirmed that under its new leadership, UC was now willing to return to the negotiating table.

He said “May 13 has stopped our advances in those exchanges” but “now is the time to build the road to full sovereignty”.

Back to the negotiating table
In the footsteps of those expected negotiations, heavy campaigning will follow to prepare for crucial provincial elections to be held no later than November 2025.

The five years of “transition” (2025-2030), would be used to transfer the remaining “regal” powers from France as well as putting in place “a political, financial and international” framework, accompanied by the French State, Tjibaou elaborated.

And after the transitional period, UC’s president said a new phase of talks could start to put in place what he terms “interdependence conventions on some of the ‘regal’ — main — powers” (defence, law and order, foreign affairs, currency).

Tjibaou said this project could resemble a sort of independence in partnership, a “shared sovereignty”, a concept that was strongly suggested early November 2024 by visiting French Senate President Gérard Larcher.

But Tjibaou said there was a difference in the sense that those discussions on sharing would only take place once all the powers have been transferred from France.

“You can only share sovereignty if you have obtained it first”, he told local media.

One of the other resolutions from its congress held last weekend in the small village of Mia (Canala) was to reiterate its call to liberate Christian Téin, appointed president of the FLNKS (Kanak Socialist National Liberation Front) in absentia late August, even though he is currently imprisoned in Mulhouse (north-east of France) pending his trial.

Allegations over May riots
He is alleged to have been involved in the organisation of the demonstrations that degenerated into the May 13 riots, arson, looting and a deadly toll of 13 people, several hundred injured and material damage estimated at some 2.2 billion euros (NZ$3.9 billion).

Tjibaou also said that within a currently divided pro-independence movement, he hoped that a reunification process and “clarification” would be possible with other components of FLNKS, namely the Progressist Union in Melanesia (UPM) and the Kanak Liberation Party (PALIKA).

Since August 2024, both UPM and PALIKA have de facto withdrawn with FLNKS’s political bureau, saying they no longer recognised themselves in the way the movement had radicalised.

In 1988, after half a decade of a quasi civil war, Jean-Marie Tjibaou signed the Matignon-Oudinot agreements with New Caledonia’s pro-France and anti-independence leader Jacques Lafleur.

The third signatory was the French State.

One year later, in 1989, Tjibaou was shot dead by a hard-line pro-independence militant.

His son Emmanuel was aged 13 at the time.

‘Common destiny’
In 1998, a new agreement, the Nouméa Accord, was signed, with a focus on increased autonomy, the notions of “common destiny” and a local “citizenship” and a gradual transfer of powers from France.

After the three referendums held between 2018 and 2021, the Nouméa Accord prescribed that if there had been three referendums rejecting independence, then political stakeholders should “meet to examine the situation thus generated”.

On Thursday, Union Calédonienne also stressed that the Nouméa Accord remained the founding document of all future political discussions.

“We are sticking to the Nouméa Accord because it is this document that brings us to the elements of accession to sovereignty”.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

The election of Emmanuel Tjibaou as the new president of New Caledonia’s main pro-independence party, the Union Calédonienne (UC), has triggered a whole range of political reactions — mostly favourable, some more cautious.

Within the pro-independence camp, the two main moderate parties UPM (Progressist Union in Melanesia) and PALIKA (Kanak Liberation Party), have reacted favourably, although they have recently distanced themselves from UC.

UPM leader Victor Tutugoro hailed Tjibaou’s election while pointing out that it was “not easy” . . . “given the difficult circumstances”.

• READ MORE: UN experts ‘alarmed’ by Kanaky New Caledonia deaths
• Other Kanaky New Caledonia reports

“It’s courageous of him to take this responsibility,” he told public broadcaster NC la 1ère.

“He is a man of dialogue, a pragmatic man.”

PALIKA leader Jean-Pierre Djaïwé reacted similarly, saying Tjibaou “is well aware that the present situation is very difficult”.

Both PALIKA and UPM hoped the new UC leadership could have the potential to pave the way for a reconciliation between all members of the Kanak Socialist National Liberation Front (FLNKS), which has been experiencing profound differences for the past few years.

‘Real generational change’
On the pro-France (and therefore anti-independence) side, which is also divided, the moderate Calédonie Ensemble’s Philippe Michel saw in this new leadership a “real generational change” and noted that Tjibaou’s “appeasing” style could build new bridges between opposing sides of New Caledonia’s political spectrum.

“We’ll have to leave him some time to put his mark on UC’s operating mode,” Michel said.

“We all have to find our way back towards an agreement.”

Over the past two years, attempts from France to have all parties reach an agreement that could potentially produce a document to succeed the 1998 Nouméa autonomy Accord have failed, partly because of UC’s refusal to attend discussions involving all parties around the same table.

Pro-France Rassemblement-LR President Alcide Ponga said it was a big responsibility Tjibaou had on his shoulders in the coming months.

“Because we have these negotiations coming on how to exit the Nouméa Accord.

“I think it’s good that everyone comes back to the table — this is something New Caledonians are expecting.”

‘Wait and see’
Gil Brial, vice-president of a more radical pro-France Les Loyalistes, had a “wait and see” approach.

“We’re waiting now to see what motions UC has endorsed,” he said.

“Because if it’s returning to negotiations with only one goal, of accessing independence, despite three referendums which rejected independence, it won’t make things any simpler.”

Brial said he was well aware that UC’s newly-elected political bureau now included about half of “moderate” members, and the rest remained more radical.

“We want to see which of these trends will take the lead, who will act as negotiators and for what goal.”

UC has yet to publish the exact content of the motions adopted by its militants following its weekend congress.

Les Loyalistes leader and Southern province President Sonia Backès also reacted to Tjibaou’s election, saying this was “expected”.

Writing on social media, she expressed the hope that under its new leadership, UC would now “constructively return to the negotiating table”.

She said her party’s approach was “wait and see, without any naivety”.

Tjibaou’s first post-election comments
Tjibaou told journalists: “Now we have to pull up our sleeves and also shed some light on what has transpired since the 13 May (insurrection riots).”

He also placed a high priority on the upcoming political talks on New Caledonia’s institutional and political future.

“We still need to map out a framework and scope — what negotiations, what framework, what contents for this new agreement everyone is calling for.

“What we’ll be looking for is an agreement towards full emancipation and sovereignty. Based on this, we’ll have to build.”

He elaborated on Monday by defining UC’s pro-independence intentions as “a basket of negotiations”.

He, like his predecessor Daniel Goa, also placed a strong emphasis on the need for UC to take stock of past shortcomings (especially in relation to the younger generations) in order to “transform and move forward”.

CCAT ‘an important tool’
Asked about his perception of the role a UC-created “field action coordinating cell” (CCAT) has played in the May riots, Tjibaou said this remained “an important tool, especially to mobilise our militants on the ground”.

“But [CCAT] objectives have to be well-defined at all times.

“There is no political motion from UC that condones violence as a means to reach our goals.

“If abuses have been committed, justice will take its course.”

At its latest congress in August 2024 (which both UPM and PALIKA decided not to attend), the FLNKS appointed CCAT leader Christian Téin as its new president.

Téin is in jail in Mulhouse in the north-east of France, following his arrest in June and pending his trial.

In the newly-elected UC political bureau, the UC’s congress, which was held in the small village of Mia (near Canala, East Coast of the main island of Grande Terre) has maintained Téin as the party’s “commissar-general”.

Tjibaou only candidate
Tjibaou was the only candidate for the president’s position.

His election on Sunday comes as UC’s former leader, Daniel Goa, 71, announced last week that he did not intend to seek another mandate, partly for health reasons, after leading the party for the past 12 years.

Goa told militants this was a “heavy burden” his successor would now have to carry.

He also said there was a need to work on political awareness and training for the younger generations.

He said the heavy involvement of the youth in the recent riots, not necessarily within the UC’s political framework, was partly caused by “all these years during which we did not train (UC) political commissioners” on the ground.

He told local media at the weekend this has been “completely neglected”, saying this was his mea culpa.

After the riots started, there was a perception that calls for calm coming from UC and other political parties were no longer heeded and that, somehow, the whole insurrection had got out of control.

The 48-year-old Tjibaou was also elected earlier this year as one of New Caledonia’s two representatives to the French National Assembly (Lower House in the French Parkiament).

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

French police have shot and killed two men in New Caledonia, stoking tensions with pro-independence groups days ahead of a public holiday marking France’s annexation of the Pacific archipelago.

The pro-independence FLNKS (Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front) decried the deaths yesterday as “barbaric and humiliating methods” used by French police resulting in a “summary execution” and called for an independent investigation.

The shootings bring the number of deaths in the Pacific territory to 13 since unrest began in May over French government changes to a voting law that indigenous Kanak people feared would compromise their push for independence.

• READ MORE: France boosts Pacific security forces as symbolic ‘September 24’ date looms
• Other Kanaky New Caledonia crisis reports

The men were killed in a confrontation between French gendarmerie and Kanak protesters in the tribal village of Saint Louis, a heartland of the independence movement near the capital Nouméa.

Public Prosecutor Yves Dupas said in a media statement the police operation using armoured vehicles was to arrest suspects for attempted murder of officers and for armed robbery on the Saint Louis road, with “nearly 300 shots noted in recent months.”

“The two deceased persons were the subject of a search warrant, among a total of 13 persons implicated, sought and located in the Saint Louis tribe,” Dupas said, adding they had failed to respond to summonses.

Dupas ordered two investigations, one over the attempted murders of police officers and the second into “death without the intention of causing it relating to the use of weapons by the GIGN gendarmerie (elite police tactical unit) and the consequent death of the two persons sought”.

Push back ‘peaceful solution’
Union Calédonienne (UC) secretary-general Dominique Fochi said yesterday the actions of French security forces “only worsen the situation on the ground and push back the prospect of a peaceful solution.”

“The FLNKS denounces the barbaric and humiliating methods used by the police, who did not hesitate to carry out a summary execution of one of the young people in question,” Fochi read from a FLNKS statement at a press conference.

“We demand an immediate de-escalation of military interventions in the south of our country, particularly in Saint Louis, where militarisation and pressure continue on the population, which can only lead to more human drama.”

The statement called for an immediate “independent and impartial investigation to shed light on the circumstances of these assassinations in order to establish responsibilities”.

Prosecutor Dupas said police came under fire from up to five people during the operation in Saint Louis and responded with two shots.

“The first shot from the policeman hit a man, aged 30, positioned as a lone sniper, who was wounded in the right flank. The second shot hit a 29-year-old man in the chest,” Dupas said, adding three rifles and ammunition had been seized.

One of the men died at the scene, while the other escaped and later died after arriving at a local hospital.

Deaths raise Citizenship Day tensions
The deaths are likely to raise tensions ahead of Citizenship Day on Tuesday, which will mark the 171st anniversary of France’s takeover of New Caledonia.

For many Kanaks, the anniversary is a reminder of France’s brutal colonisation of the archipelago that is located roughly halfway between Australia and Fiji.

Paris has beefed up security ahead of Citizenship Day, with High Commissioner Louis Le Franc saying nearly 7000 French soldiers, police and gendarmes are now in New Caledonia.

“I have requested reinforcements, which have been granted,” he told local station Radio Rythme Bleu last week.

“This has never been seen before, even during the toughest times of the events in 1984 and 1988 — we have never had this,” he said, referring to a Kanak revolt in the 1980s that only ended with the promise of an independence referendum.

Authorities have also imposed a strict curfew from 6 pm to 6 am between September 21-24, restricted alcohol sales, the transport of fuel and possession of firearms.

Kanaks make up about 40 percent of New Caledonia’s 270,000 people but are marginalised in their own land — they have lower incomes and poorer health outcomes than Europeans who make up a third of the population and occupy most positions of power in the territory.

UN decolonisation process
New Caledonia voted by modest majorities to remain part of France in referendums held in 2018 and 2020 under a UN-mandated decolonisation process. Three votes were part of the Noumea Accord to increase Kanaks’ political power following deadly violence in the 1980s.

A contentious final referendum in 2021 was overwhelmingly in favour of continuing with the status quo.

However, supporters of independence have rejected its legitimacy due to very low turnout — it was boycotted by the independence movement — and because it was held during a serious phase of the covid-19 pandemic, which restricted campaigning.

Earlier this year, the president of Union Calédonienne proposed Septemnber 24 as the date by which sovereignty should be declared from France. The party later revised the date to 2025, but the comments underscored how self-determination is firmly in the minds of local independence leaders.

The unrest that erupted in May was the worst outbreak of violence in decades and has left the New Caledonian economy on the brink of collapse, with damages estimated to be at least 1.2 billion euros (US $1.3 billion).

Some 35,000 people are out of a job.

Copyright ©2015-2024, BenarNews. Republished with the permission of BenarNews.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

Riots in Kanaky New Caledonia claimed their 10th victim yesterday.

The death took place as a result of an exchange of fire between a group of rioters in the village of Saint Louis (near the capital Nouméa) and French gendarmes, local news media reported.

Nouméa Public Prosecutor Yves Dupas yesterday confirmed the incident and the fatality, saying the victim had opened fire on the French gendarmes, who then returned fire.

• READ MORE: Other Kanaky New Caledonia crisis reports

Gunfire exchanges had also been reported on the previous day, since French security forces had arrived on site.

A group of armed snipers were reported to have entered the Church of Saint Louis, including the victim who was reported to have opened fire, aiming at the gendarmes from that location.

The victim is described as the nephew of prominent pro-independence politician and local territorial Congress president Roch Wamytan.

Wamytan is also the Great Chief of Saint Louis and a prominent figure of the hard-line pro-independence party Union Calédonienne (UC).

On Sunday, during an election night live broadcast, he told public television NC la 1ère that “as the High Chief of Saint Louis and as President of the Congress, I find what is going on in Saint Louis really regrettable”.

“We will try to address the situation in the coming days,” he said.

On Sunday night, French gendarmes had to evacuate two resident religious sisters from the Saint Louis Marist Mission after armed rioters threatened them at gunpoint and ordered them to leave.

It is the 10th name on the official death toll since violent riots broke out in New Caledonia on May 13.

The toll includes two French gendarmes.

French security forces had launched an operation in Saint Louis on Tuesday in a bid to restore law and order and dismantle several roadblocks and barricades erected by rioters in this area, known to be a pro-independence stronghold.

Car jacking
Several other incidents of car jacking had also been reported near the Saint Louis mission over the past few days on this portion of the strategic road leading to the capital Nouméa.

The incidents have been described by victims as the stealing of vehicles, threats at gunpoint, humiliation of drivers and passengers, and — in some cases — burning the vehicles.

Some of the victims later declared they had been ordered to take off their clothes.

Nearby Mont-Dore Mayor Eddie Lecourieux strongly condemned the actions as “unspeakable” and “unjustifiable”.

On Tuesday evening, another incident involved the burning of one of the maritime ferries – used by many as an alternate means to reach Nouméa.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

New Caledonia’s security forces have arrested eight people believed to be involved in the organisation of pro-independence-related riots that broke out in the French Pacific territory last month.

The eight include leaders of the so-called Field Action Coordinating Cell (CCAT), a group that was set up by the Union Calédonienne (UC), one of the more radical and largest party making up the FLNKS (Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front) platform.

The large-scale dawn operation yesterday, mainly conducted by gendarmes at CCAT’s headquarters in downtown Nouméa’s Magenta district, as well as suburban Mont-Dore, is said to be part of a judicial preliminary inquiry into the events of May 13 involving the French anti-terrorist division.

• READ MORE: French police raid pro-independence Kanak party HQ, arrest eight in crackdown
• Nouméa’s Tontouta International Airport reopened after civil unrest
• Other New Caledonia unrest reports

The whole area had been cordoned off for the duration of the operation.

Public Prosecutor Yves Dupas said in a media release this inquiry had been launched on May 17.

“It includes potential charges of conspiracy in order to prepare the commission of a crime; organised destruction of goods and property by arson; complicity by way of incitement of crimes and murders or murder attempts on officers entrusted with public authority; and participation in a grouping formed with the aim of preparing acts of violence on persons and property.”

Dupas said that because some of the charges included organised crime, the arrested individuals could be kept in custody for up to 96 hours.

Téin among 8 arrested
CCAT leader Christian Téin was one of the eight arrested leaders.

Dupas said the arrested men had been notified of their fundamental rights, including the right to be assisted by a lawyer, the right to undergo a medical examination, and the right to remain silent during subsequent interviews.

“Investigators and the public prosecution intend to conduct this phase of the inquiry with all the necessary objectivity and impartiality — with the essential objective being seeking truth,” Dupas said.

Dupas pointed out other similar operations were also carried out on Wednesday, including at the headquarters of USTKE union, one of the major components of CCAT.

The arrests come five weeks after pro-independence protests — against a proposed change to the rules of eligibility of voters at local elections — degenerated into violence, looting and arson.

Current estimates are that more than 600 businesses, and about 200 private residences were destroyed, causing more than 7000 employees to lose their jobs for a total cost of more than 1 billion euros (NZ$1.8 billion).

The unrest is believed to be the worst since a quasi civil war erupted in New Caledonia during the second half of the 1980s.

‘Stay calm’ call by the UC
Pro-independence party Union Calédonienne swiftly reacted to the arrests on Wednesday by calling on “all of CCAT’s relays and our young people to stay calm and not to respond to provocation, whether on the ground or on social networks”.

UC, in a media release, said it “denounces” the “abusive arrests” of the CCAT leaders.

“The French State is persisting in its intimidation manoeuvres. Those arrests were predictable,” UC said, and also demanded “immediate explanations”.

UC president Daniel Goa is also calling on the removal of the French representative in New Caledonia, High Commissioner Louis Le Franc.

The Pro-France Loyalistes party leader and New Caledonia’s Southern province President, Sonia Backès, also reacted, but praised the arrests, saying “about time” on social networks.

Another pro-France politician from the same party, Nicolas Metzdorf, recalled that those arrests were needed before “a resumption of talks regarding the future of New Caledonia”.

“But all is not settled; the restoration of law and order, even though it now seems feasible, must continue to intensify.”

At the weekend, a Congress of the FLNKS was postponed, due to persisting differences between the pro-independence umbrella’s components, and the fact that UC had brought several hundred CCAT members to the conference, which local organisers and moderate FLNKS parties perceived as a “security risk”.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

French police and gendarmes force were deployed around the political headquarters of the pro-independence Caledonian Union in Kanaky New Caledonia’s Nouméa suburb of Magenta in a crackdown today.

The public prosecutor confirmed that eight protesters had been arrested, including the leader of the CCAT action groups, Christian Téin, as suspects in a “criminal conspiracy” investigation, local media report.

Prosecutor Yves Dupas said that the Prosecutor’s Office “intends to conduct this phase of the investigation with all the necessary objectivity and impartiality”.

• READ MORE: Nouméa’s Tontouta International Airport reopened after civil unrest
• Other New Caledonia unrest reports

The arrests were made in Nouméa and in the nearby township of Mont-Dore.

This was part of the investigation opened by the prosecution on May 17 — for days after the rioting and start of unrest in New Caledonia.

The Caledonian Union (UC) is the largest partner in the pro-independence umbrella group FLNKS (Kanak and Social National Liberation Front).

Presidential letter
Meanwhile, RNZ Pacific reports that French President Emmanuel Macron had written to the people of New Caledonia, confirming that he would not convene the Congress (both houses of Parliament) meeting needed to ratify the controversial constitutional electoral amendments.

Local media reports said Macron was also waiting for the “firm and definitive lifting” of all the roadblocks and unreserved condemnation of the violence — and that those who had encouraged unrest would have to answer for their action.

Macron had previously confirmed he had suspended but not withdrawn New Caledonia’s controversial constitutional amendment.

The changes would allow more people to vote with critics fearing it would weaken the indigenous Kanak voice.

In this letter, the President said France remained committed to the reconstruction of the Pacific territory, and called on New Caledonians “not to give in to pressure and disarray but to stand up to rebuild”.

The need for a return to dialogue was mentioned several times.

He wrote that this dialogue should make it possible to define a common “project of society for all New Caledonian citizens”, while respecting their history, their own identity and their aspirations.

This project, based on trust, would recognise the dignity of each person, justice and equality, and would need to provide a future for New Caledonia’s younger generations.

Macron’s letter ended with a handwritten paragraph which read: “I am confident in our ability to find together the path of respect, of shared ambition, of the future.”

‘Financial troubles’
Nicolas Metzdorf, a rightwing candidate for the 2024 snap general election, said he had contacted the President following this letter to tell him that it was “unsuitable given the situation in New Caledonia”.

New Caledonia’s local government Finance Minister Christopher Gygès said the territory was trying to get emergency money from France due to financial troubles.

One of the factors is believed to be the ongoing civil unrest that broke out on May 13, which prevented most of the public sector employees from being able to pay their social contributions.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

After the surprise announcement of the French National Assembly’s dissolution last Sunday, French Pacific territories are already busy preparing for the forthcoming snap election with varying expectations.

Following the decision by President Emmanuel Macron, the snap general election will be held on June 30 (first round) and July 7 (second round).

• READ MORE:  Kanaky New Caledonia unrest: Fiji, PNG call for UN decolonisation mission
• Pacific churches call at UN for France to drop ‘limbo law’ to restore peace in Kanaky
• Kanaky New Caledonia unrest: What happens to limbo law change with French snap election?
• History ‘replaying itself’ in Kanaky but Pacific solidarity growing, says Tau
• Other Kanaky New Caledonia reports

Unsurprisingly, most of the incumbent MPs for the French Pacific have announced they will run again. Here is a summary of prospects:

New Caledonia
In New Caledonia, which has been gripped by ongoing civil unrest since violence broke out on May 13, the incumbents are pro-France Philippe Dunoyer and Nicolas Metzdorf, both affiliated to Macron’s Renaissance party, but also opponents on the local scene, marked by strong divisions within the pro-France camp.

Hours after the surprise dissolution, they both announced they would run, even though the campaign, locally, was going to be “complicated” with a backdrop of insurrectional roadblocks from the pro-independence movement.

Dunoyer said it was the “worst time for an election campaign”.

“It’s almost indecent to call [New] Caledonians to the polls at this time, because this campaign is not the priority at all,” he said.

“Not to mention the curfew still in place which will make political rallies very complicated.

“Political campaigns are always contributing to exacerbating tensions. [President Macron’s call for snap elections] just shows he did not care about New Caledonia when he decided this,” he said.

Dunoyer told NC la 1ère television on Monday he was running again “because for a very long time, I have been advocating for the need of a consensus between pro-independence and anti-independence parties so that we can exit the Nouméa Accord in a climate of peace, respect of each other’s beliefs”.

On the local scene, Dunoyer belongs to the moderate pro-French Calédonie Ensemble, whereas Metzdorf’s political camp (Les Loyalistes) is perceived as more radical.

“The radicalism on both parts has led us to a situation of civil war and it is now urgent to put an end to this . . .  by restoring dialogue to reach a consensus and a global agreement,” he said.

Dunoyer believes “a peaceful way is still possible because many [New] Caledonians aspire to living together”.

On the pro-independence side, leaders of the FLNKS (Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front) platform have also been swift to indicate they intend to field pro-independence candidates so that “we can increase our political representation” at the [French] national level.

The FLNKS is holding its convention this Saturday, when the umbrella group is expected to make further announcements regarding its campaign strategy and its nominees.

French Polynesia
In French Polynesia, since the previous general elections in 2022, the three seats at the National Assembly were taken — for the first time ever — by members of the pro-independence Tavini Huiraatira, which is also running the local government since the Tahitian general election of May 2023.

The incumbents are Steve Chailloux, Tematai Legayic and Mereana Reid-Arbelot.

The Tavini has held several meetings behind closed doors to fine-tune its strategy and designate its three fielded candidates.

But the snap election is also perceived as an opportunity for the local, pro-France (locally known as “autonomists”) opposition, to return and overcome its current divisions.

Since Sunday, several meetings have been held at party levels between the components of the pro-France side.

Former President and Tapura party leader Edouard Fritch told local media that at this stage all parties at least recognised the need to unite, but no agreement had emerged as yet.

He said his party was intending to field “young” candidates and that the most effective line-up would be that all four pro-French parties unite and win all three constituencies seats for French Polynesia.

“A search for unity requires a lot of effort and compromises . . .  But a three-party, a two-party platform is no longer a platform; we need all four parties to get together,” Fritch said, adding that his party was ready to “share” and only field its candidate in only one of the three constituencies.

Pro-France A Here ia Porinetia President Nicole Sanquer told local media “we must find a way of preserving each party’s values”, saying she was not sure the desired “autonomist” platform could emerge.

Wallis and Futuna
In Wallis and Futuna, there is only one seat, which was held by Mikaele Seo, affiliated to French President Macron’s Renaissance party.

He has not indicated as yet whether he intends to run again at the forthcoming French snap general election, although there is a strong likelihood he will.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

The president and board of the Protestant Church of Kanaky New Caledonia has appealed in an open letter to French President Emmanuel Macron to scrap the constitutional procedure to “unfreeze” the electorate, and to complete the “decolonisation project” initiated by the Nouméa Accords.

“If anyone can help us roll back the tombstone that is currently preventing any possible
resurrection, it is you, Mr President,” said the letter.

The church’s message said a “simple word” from the President would end the “fear, resistance and despair” that has gripped Kanaky New Caledonia since the protests against the French government’s proposed electoral law change on May 13 erupted into rioting and the erection of barricades.

• READ MORE: France sends armoured vehicles with machine gun capability to New Caledonia
• Other New Caledonia crisis reports

Opposition is mounting against the militarisation of the Pacific territory since the strife and the church wants to see the peaceful path over the past three decades resume towards “Caledonian citizenship”.

The letter said:

Open letter to Mr Emmanuel Macron
President of the French Republic

The President and the Board of the Protestant Church of Kanaky-New Caledonia decided, this Wednesday 05/06/2024, to transmit to you the following Declaration:

God accepts every human being as they are, without any merit on their part. His Spirit
manifests itself in us, teaching us to listen to each other. The Church owes respect to the
political and customary authorities, and vice versa.

In the current context, which is particularly explosive for our country, the Church’s expression of faith and its fidelity to the Gospel challenge it to bear witness to and proclaim Christian hope.

God created us as free human beings, inviting us to live in trust with him. We often betray this trust because we are often confronted with a world marked by evil and misfortune.

But a breach was opened with Jesus, recognised as the Christ announced by the prophets
God’s reign is already at work among us. We believe that in Jesus, the crucified and risen
Christ, God has taken upon himself evil, our sin.

Freed by his goodness and compassion, God dwells in our frailty and thus breaks the power of death. He makes all things new!

Through his Son Jesus, we all become his children. He constantly lifts us up: from fear to
confidence, from resignation to resistance, from despair to hope.

The Spirit of Pentecost encourages us to bear witness to God’s love in word and deed. He calls us, together with other artisans of justice and peace, whether political or traditional, to listen to the distress and to fight the scourges of all kinds: existential concerns, social breakdowns, hatred of others, discrimination, persecution, violence, refusal to accept any limits .. .  God himself is the source of new things and possible gifts.

We testify that the truth that the Church lives by always surpasses it.

It is therefore with respect and humility, Mr President, that we ask you:

• on the one hand, to officially record the end of the constitutional procedure for unfreezing the electorate and no longer to present it to the Versailles Congress; and
• secondly, to pursue the decolonisation project initiated by the Nouméa
  Accords, which would lead to Caledonian citizenship.

If anyone can help us roll back the tombstone that is currently preventing any possible
resurrection, it is you, Mr President of the Republic.

Don’t be afraid to revisit this legislative process that you have set in motion and that is placing the children of God of Kanaky New Caledonia in fear, resistance and despair.

With a simple word from you, these children of God in Kanaky New Caledonia can regain
their confidence and hope.

To him who is love beyond anything we can express or imagine, let us express our respect and gratitude.

The letter was signed by the Protestant Church president, Pastor Var Kaemo.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

French President Emmanuel Macron landed in Nouméa today under heavy security after pro-independence protests by indigenous Kanaks followed by rioting in the Pacific territory of New Caledonia.

Speaking to a pool of journalists, he set as his top priority the return to peace with New Caledonia still in the grip of violent unrest after 10 days of roadblocks, rioting, burning and looting.

The riots, related to New Caledonia’s independence issue, started on May 13, as the French National Assembly in Paris voted in favour of a controversial constitutional amendment which would significantly modify the rules of eligibility for local elections.

• READ MORE:  French President Emmanuel Macron lands in Nouméa amid unrest
• LISTEN TO RADIO WAATEA: Interview with Jesse Ounea and David Small
• Liberation for New Caledonia’s Kanak people ‘must come’, says media educator — Audio
• President Emmanuel Macron to fly to New Caledonia within hours
• ‘You are not alone’ Pacific messages of solidarity for Kanaky
• Other Kanaky New Caledonia crisis reports

The pro-independence movement FLNKS (Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front) objected to the text, saying this, by allowing people to vote locally after 10 years of uninterrupted residence, would have a significant impact on their future representation.

The amendment remains to be ratified by a meeting of the Congress in Versailles (a joint sitting of both Upper and Lower Houses) before it would take effect.

Earlier, Macron said he intended to call this joint sitting sometime before the end of June.

New Caledonia’s pro-independence parties, as well as some pro-France parties, agree the current situation is not conducive to such a vote.

Call to postpone key vote
They are calling for the Versailles Congress joint sitting to be at least postponed or even that the controversial text be withdrawn altogether by the French government.

During his trip, Macron is also accompanied by Home Affairs and Overseas Minister Gérald Darmanin (who has been dealing with New Caledonia since 2022); Darmanin’s deputy (“delegate” minister for overseas) Marie Guévenoux; and Defence Minister Sébastien Lecornu (who was in charge of the French overseas portfolio before Darmanin).

He also brought with him several high-level public servants who would form a “dialogue mission” tasked to restore contacts with New Caledonia’s political stakeholders.

The “mission” will stay in New Caledonia “as long as it takes” and its goal will be to have a “local political dialogue with the view of arriving at a comprehensive political agreement” regarding New Caledonia’s long-term future.

Along with the presidential Airbus, a military A-400 also landed in New Caledonia, bringing more law and order reinforcements.

Macron plans to meet political, economic, custom (traditional) and civil society representatives.

Doubts remain on whether all of the local parties would accept to meet the French Head of State.

Normal ‘health care, food supply’ aim
Talking to the media, Macron said a return to “peace, calm and security” was “the priority of all priorities”.

This would also imply restoring normal “health care, goods and food supply” which have been gravely affected for the past 10 days.

“I am aware the population is suffering from a great crisis situation. We will also talk about economic reconstruction. For the political questions, the most sensitive ones, I came to talk about New Caledonia’s future,” he said.

“At the end of today, decisions and announcements will be made. I have come here with a sense of determination. And with a sense of respect and humility.”

Since May 13, the riots have caused the death of six people, destroyed an estimated 400 businesses for a total estimated cost, experts say, is now bordering 1 billion euros (NZ$1.8 billion).

Asked by journalists if all this could be achieved in a matter of just a few hours, Macron replied: “We shall see. I have no set limit” (on his New Caledonia stay).

Macron’s schedule with a visit initially set to last not more than 24 hours, remains sketchy.

Visit extended to 48 hours
It appears to have been extended to 48 hours.

In many parts of New Caledonia, French law enforcement (police, gendarmes) were today still struggling to regain control of several strategic access roads, as well as several districts of the capital Nouméa.

Macron said the state of emergency, which was imposed Wednesday last week for an initial period of 12 days, “should not be extended”, but that security forces currently deployed “will stay as long as necessary, even during the Paris 2024 Olympics”.

He also urged all stakeholders to “call for the roadblocks to be lifted”.

“I am here because dialogue is necessary, but I’m calling on everyone’s sense of responsibility.”

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

By Patrick Decloitre, RNZ Pacific correspondent French Pacific desk

With New Caledonia about to enter its second week of deadly riots, French authorities have mounted a massive law enforcement operation to regain control of the main roads in and around the capital Nouméa.

The riots were sparked by a proposed constitutional amendment which would allow more French residents of New Caledonia to vote — a move that pro-independence protesters say would weaken the indigenous Kanak vote.

French Prime Minister Gabriel Attal — after a 12-day presidential state of emergency was declared mid-week — is now chairing daily meetings of an “inter-ministerial crisis cell”, also involving Home Affairs and Overseas Minister Gérald Darmanin, his deputy Marie Guévenoux, Army Minister Sébastien Lecornu and Justice Minister Eric Dupont-Moretti.

• READ MORE: New Caledonia unrest: Defence Force to bring New Zealanders home
• Uneasy calm sets in as ‘massive’ reinforcements arrive
• Kanaky in flames: Five takeaways from the New Caledonia independence riots – David Robie
• Other Kanaky New Caledonia crisis reports

Attal also hosted a parliamentary “liaison committee” on the crisis in New Caledonia meeting on Friday. The meeting involved parliamentary representatives of New Caledonia and parliamentary groups specialising in the French Pacific archipelago.

A ‘dialogue mission’ for New Caledonia
It emerged after the conference that a “dialogue mission” was now very likely to be set up and to travel to New Caledonia in order to restore dialogue and trust between Paris and its South Pacific dependency.

The notion of the mission, which would have to be “impartial” and “bipartisan”, had been called by several key players within the French political scene.

This high-level dialogue mission could involve Senate President Gérard Larcher or National Assembly President Yaël Braun-Pivet.

Also mentioned have been former prime ministers such as Lionel Jospin (who signed the Nouméa Accord in 1998 on behalf of France) or Edouard Philippe, who has always said he had grown a strong bond with New Caledonia when he was in office (until 2020).

The constitutional amendment was endorsed by the French Senate on April 2 and the National Assembly on May 14.

However, a joint sitting of both upper and lower houses of the French parliament, which President Emmanuel Macron intended to convene before the end of June to endorse the amendment, was “unlikely to take place within this timeframe”, Braun-Pivet and Larcher told French media on Friday.

Feeling of ‘disrespect’
Several high-level experts and officials said that the spirit of the Matignon Accords — an agreement between loyalists and pro-independence groups which was signed in 1988, a decade before the Nouméa Accord — had been lost along the way. The breach of that consensus had led to a loss of trust and growing defiance between New Caledonian pro-independence players and the French State.

They also said the Kanak people felt “disrespect” when a request to delay the third independence referendum at the end of 2021 was ignored. That ended in a boycott of the final consultation on New Caledonia’s self-determination.

They also resented the fact that at one stage, Loyalist Party leader Sonia Backès had been appointed the French government’s Secretary of State (associate minister) for citizenship.

She was forced to resign in September 2023 after losing her bid for a seat at the senatorial elections.

More recently, tensions arose when another prominent pro-France leader, Nicolas Metzdorf, was appointed rapporteur for the the debates on the proposed constitutional amendment at the National Assembly.

Since the beginning of the unrest, there have been calls for the issue to be transferred back to the Prime Minister’s Office, as had been an unwritten rule since peace was restored back in the 1980s through negotiations with then-prime minister Michel Rocard.

Experts said this “special bond” was broken in 2020, after French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe was replaced by Jean Castex and the Overseas portfolio was transferred to Sébastien Lecornu, who is now France’s minister of armed forces.

Attal was also tasked to set a date for talks to be held in Paris with New Caledonian politicians for inclusive talks on the territory’s political future, but several players have refused, saying the time was not appropriate as yet.’We have pierced all the roadblocks’

‘We have broken through all the roadblocks’
Tonight, an operation involving about 600 security personnel was launched in the outskirts of the capital to regain control of the highway between Nouméa and Tontouta International Airport, French High Commissioner Louis Le France said.

The main objective was to “restore republican order”, he said, adding that he now had sufficient numbers of law enforcement officers after reinforcements had arrived from France.

“We have broken through all the roadblocks . . .  Now to restore normal traffic, we have to clean the debris,” he said.

Overnight, French special forces would “carry out harassment operations” throughout the greater Nouméa area, he said.

All schools would remain closed this week from tomorrow, New Caledonia’s government said in a release.

“This time will be used to work on the best scenarios to prepare the resumption and integrate all of the material, security, human and psychological implications.”

Nouméa’s archbishop Michel-Marie Calvert, speaking at the Catholic Sunday mass for Pentecost, said the community had “betrayed our faith, our baptism and Jesus” through its divisions.

“Our island, once known as ‘closest to paradise’, has now become closest to hell. So many political voices are disqualified. They are no longer audible or credible.

“Let’s sound a strong signal to say ‘no’ to violence. Let’s call for a stop to violence, let’s demand from our elected leaders an obligation of results for a shared peaceful future, of lost and found fraternity.”

More buildings were destroyed by fire on Saturday night in Nouméa, including a media centre in Rivière Salée.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

Worried New Caledonian expats in Aotearoa admit they are “terrified” for friends and family amid ongoing violence and civil unrest in the French Pacific territory.

The death toll remained at four tonight, and hundreds have been injured after electoral changes sparked widespread rioting by pro-independence supporters in the capital of Nouméa.

French President Emmanuel Macron has declared a 12-day state of emergency and about 1200 police enforcements are due to arrive from France.

• LISTEN TO RNZ CHECKPOINT: Latest on unrest in New Caledonia
• Expats worried about families in New Caledonia
• READ MORE: Nouméa ‘was on fire’ – New Zealander in New Caledonia tells of unrest
  France declares state of emergency in New Caledonia – four die in riots
• Other Kanaky New Caledonia crisis reports

Many worried locals have been confined to their homes.

New Zealand-based New Caledonians have explained how the situation in their homeland has left them on edge.

Pascale Desrumaux and her family have been in Auckland for two years.

With parts of the country in turmoil, she said she was scared for her family and friends back home in Nouméa.

“I’m terrified and I’m very stressed,” Desrumaux said.

“[My family] are afraid for their lives.”

‘Locked in’
The precarious situation is illustrated by the fact her family cannot leave their homes and neighbouring stores have been ransacked then torched by protesters.

“They are locked in at the moment, so they can’t move — so they feel anxiety of course,” Desrumaux said.

“On top of that, shortly they will run out of food.

“The situation is complex.”

Desrumaux is checking in with family members every few hours for updates.

Amid the current climate, she said she had mixed emotions about being abroad.

“This shared feeling of being relieved to be here in New Zealand and grateful because my kids and husband are not in danger,” she said.

“At the same time I feel so bad for my friends and family over there.”

‘A beautiful place’
She stressed her home country remained “a beautiful place” and hoped the crisis could be resolved peacefully.

Fellow Auckland-based New Caledonian Anais Bride said she had been left distraught by what was unfolding.

In the past 48 hours, her parents have vacated their Nouméa home to stay with Bride’s sister as tensions escalated.

Based on her conversations with loved ones, she said that international news coverage had not fully conveyed the fluid crisis facing citizens on the ground.

“It took my mother a little while for her to accept the fact that it was time to leave, because she wanted to stay where she lives.

“My sisters’ just told her ‘at the end of the day, it’s just your house, it’s material’.

“It’s been hard for my parents.”

One supermarket standing
She said there was only one supermarket left standing in Nouméa, with many markets destroyed by fire.

Kevin, who did not want his surname to be published, is another New Caledonian living in New Zealand.

While his family has not seen much unrest first hand, explosions and smoke were constant where they were, he said.

He said it was hard to predict how the unrest could be straightened out.

“It’s hard to tell,” he said.

“The most tragic thing of course is the four deaths, and many businesses have been burned down so many people will lose their job.

“The main thing is how people rebuild connections, peace and of course the economy.”

‘Timely exit’ from Nouméa
Christchurch woman Viki Moore spent a week in New Caledonia before making a “timely exit” out of Nouméa on Monday as civil tension intensified.

“There was a heavy police presence out at the airport with two [armoured vehicles] at the entrance and heavily armed military police roaming around.

“Once we got into the airport we were relieved to be there in this sort of peaceful oasis.

“We didn’t really have a sense of what was still to come.”

She admitted that she did not fully comprehend the seriousness of it until she had left the territory.

Warnings for travellers
Flights through Nouméa are currently grounded.

Air New Zealand said it was monitoring the situation in New Caledonia, with its next flight NZ932 from Auckland to Nouméa still scheduled for Saturday morning.

Chief Operational Integrity and Safety Officer Captain David Morgan said this “could be subject to change”.

“The safety of our passengers, crew, and airport staff is our top priority and we will not operate flights unless their safety can be guaranteed,” he said.

“We will keep passengers updated on our services and advise customers currently in Nouméa to follow the advice of local authorities and the New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade.”

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

The signing of a controversial memorandum of cooperation between New Caledonia’s Congress and the National Assembly of Azerbaijan has fuelled more tension — and demands from anti-independence parties that the deal be scrapped altogether.

The memorandum was signed on New Caledonia’s part by one pro-independence member of the Congress, Omayra Naisseline, on behalf of Congress Chair Roch Wamytan, and by Azerbaijan’s Milli Mejtis, the National Assembly Chair Sahibé Gafarova.

It was presented as paving the way for “interparliamentary cooperation and strengthening friendly ties between the peoples of Azerbaijan and New Caledonia”.

• READ MORE: Other New Caledonia politics reports

Speaking to Azeri media after the signing, Naisseline officially thanked the Bakou Initiative Group, the non-aligned movement, for their “support to the struggle of the Kanak people”.

She said the agreement would cover such topics as “youth, culture, economics, environment and politics”.

During the official signing of the document on April 18, Azerbaijan’s flag was placed on a desk near the Kanak flag which represents New Caledonia’s pro-independence movement.

Pro-France parties were up in arms upon learning of the signing leading to Congress Chairman and pro-independence leader Wamytan held a media conference on Tuesday.

The “Bakou Initiative Group Against French Colonialism” was set up in July 2023, on the margins of a meeting of the non-aligned movement held at the time in the Azerbaijan capital.

Wamytan said the travel expenses were taken care of by the host country, and that Naisseline travelled there in her capacity as FLNKS representative.

But referring to New Caledonia’s current tense negotiations on its political future status and a French move to modify voters eligibility at New Caledonia’s local polls, Wamytan also said on Tuesday that “we need to find external backing since (French) President Macron is no longer impartial”.

“Azerbaijan has shown it has the capacity to help the (pro-independence) FLNKS, and those countries that help us can take initiatives vis-à-vis France, and this is what we need so that our voice can be heard,” he said, referring to New Caledonia’s indigenous Kanak people’s right to self-determination.

Both Wamytan and Naisseline belong to the Union Calédonienne (UC), a major component of the pro-independence front FLNKS.

Other FLNKS components such as the PALIKA (Kanak Liberation Party) and the UPM (Union of Melanesian Parties) have yet to comment on the fresh controversy.

‘Inappropriate’ and ‘shameful’
This has since prompted an open row between pro-France parties within the Congress, who are denouncing the move as “inappropriate” and “shameful”.

Les Loyalistes Congress caucus head Françoise Suvé told local media: “For Omayra Naisseline to go there and claim that she is representing the people of New Caledonia and its Congress is just unacceptable.”

Pro-France Calédonie Ensemble MP, Philippe Dunoyer said this was shameful.

“There is a confusion, an instrumentalisation and behind all this, a political will.

“If the FLNKS wants to travel there, it has the right to do so, but not the Congress.”

It is also understood that Nicolas Metzdorf, another pro-French MP who is New Caledonia’s representative at the French National Assembly, officially wrote last week to French Foreign Affairs Minister Sébastien Séjourné, asking France to provide a “strong diplomatic response” in reaction to “Azerbaijan’s flagrant interference”.

Relations between Paris and Bakou have been particularly tense over the past months.

In December 2023, a journalist from that country was denied entry and later deported on her arrival at Nouméa-La Tontouta international airport.

She claimed to be there to cover the French-hosted South Pacific defence ministers’ meeting in Nouméa, where hard-line members of the FLNKS were also holding protest marches against alleged French “re-militarisation” in New Caledonia.

In a joint release on Tuesday, pro-France parties Les Loyalistes and Rassemblement said New Caledonia’s Congress (including their MPs) were at no stage informed or consulted on this memorandum.

They said Naisseline had never been given the Congress’s endorsement to sign such a document on behalf of the Congress.

“In keeping with the Nouméa Accord which you signed (in 1998), local political institutions do not have powers in terms of international relations outside the Pacific region,”, the release added.

‘Shared powers’
Under the current Nouméa framework Accord (1998), which has been initiating a process of gradual transfer of powers from France to New Caledonia, the notion of “shared powers” applies to “international and regional relations”.

“International relations remain the responsibility of the [French] state, which will) take New Caledonia’s specific interests into account in international relations conducted by France and will associate [New Caledonia] to the discussions,” it says.

“New Caledonia may have representations in Pacific countries (and may) enter into agreements with these countries within its areas of responsibility.”

The pro-France parties also claim in the same document that the document signed with Azerbaijan “solely serves the aims of the pro-independence movement which is now becoming an instrument of Bakou regime’s will to destabilise France”.

“New Caledonia’s Congress cannot be seen as a partisan instrument serving foreign powers confronting France.”

They are calling for a Congress extraordinary sitting so that the accord with Azerbaijan can be declared “null and void”.

They also denounced the signing with “a country that is guilty of horrible crimes against its own population”.

Meanwhile, they have officially lodged a legal complaint for possible “misuse of public funds” associated with the trip to Azerbaijan.

The French High Commissioner in New Caledonia, Louis Le Franc, has indicated he would also challenge the legality of such a document.

Wamytan told media on Tuesday he would not nullify the pact with Azerbaijan “unless a court ruling compels [him] to do so”.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

Fresh clashes in New Caledonia have erupted in the suburbs of Nouméa between security forces and pro-independence protesters who oppose a nickel pact offering French assistance to salvage the industry.

The clashes, involving firearms, teargas and stone-throwing, went on for most of yesterday, blocking access roads to the capital Nouméa, as well as the nearby townships of Saint-Louis and Mont-Dore.

Traffic on the Route Provinciale 1 (RP1) was opened and closed several times, including when a squadron of French gendarmes intervened to secure the area by firing long-range teargas.

• READ MORE: Other New Caledonia politics reports

The day began with tyres being burnt on the road and then degenerated into violence from some balaclava-clad members of the protest group, who started throwing stones and sometimes using firearms and Molotov cocktails, authorities alleged.

Security forces said one of their motorbike officers, a woman, was assaulted and her vehicle was stolen.

Two of the protesters were reported to have been arrested for throwing stones.

Banners were deployed, some reading “Kanaky not for sale”, others demanding that New Caledonia’s President Louis Mapou (pro-independence) resign.

Northern mining sites also targeted
Other incidents took place in the northern town of La Foa, in the small mining village of Fonwhary, near a nickel extraction site, where Société Le Nickel trucks were not allowed to use the road.

Mont-Dore Mayor Eddy Lecourieux told local Radio Rythme Bleu they had the right to demonstrate, “but they could have done that peacefully”.

“Instead, there’s always someone who starts throwing stones.”

At dusk, the Saint-Louis and Mont-Dore areas were described as under control, but security forces, including armoured vehicles, were kept in place.

“On top of that, there are more marches scheduled for this weekend,” Lecourieux said.

Pro-independence protesters oppose current plans to have a French Constitutional amendment endorsed by France’s two houses of Parliament.

As a first step of this Parliamentary process, last week, the Senate endorsed the text, but with some amendments.

Opposing marches
Pro-France movements also want to march on the same day in support of the amendment.

If endorsed, it would allow French citizens to vote at New Caledonia’s local elections, provided they have been residing there for an uninterrupted 10 years.

Pro-independent parties, however, strongly oppose the project, saying this would be tantamount to making indigenous Kanaks a minority at local polls, and would open the door to a “recolonisation” of New Caledonia through demographics.

A similar high-risk configuration of two marches took place on March 28 in downtown Nouméa, with more than 500 French security forces deployed to keep both groups away from each other.

French authorities are understood to be holding meeting after meeting to fine-tune the security setup ahead of the weekend.

Florent Perrin, the president of Mont-Dore’s “Citizens’ Association”, told media local residents were being “taken hostage” and the unrest “must cease”.

He urged political authorities to “make decisions on all political and economic issues” New Caledonia currently faces.

Perrin called on the local population to remain calm, but invited them to “individually lodge complaints” based on “breach of freedom of circulation”.

“On our side too, tensions are beginning to run high, so we have to remain calm and not respond to those acts of provocation,” he said.

The ‘nickel pact’ issue
The clashes and blockades took place on the same day the local Congress was discussing whether it should give the green light to New Caledonia’s President Louis Mapou to sign the “nickel pact”, worth around 200 million euros (NZ$358 million) in French emergency aid.

In return, France is asking that New Caledonia’s whole nickel industry should undergo a far-reaching slate of reforms in order to make nickel less expensive and therefore more attractive on the world market.

The pact aims to salvage New Caledonia’s embattled nickel industry and its three factories — one in the north of the main island, Koniambo (KNS), and two in the south, Société le Nickel (SLN), a subsidiary of French giant Eramet, and Prony Resources.

KNS’ nickel-processing operations were put in “sleep”, non-productive mode in February after its major financier, Anglo-Swiss Glencore, said it could no longer sustain losses totalling 14 billion euros (NZ$25 billion) over the past 10 years, and that it was now seeking an entity to buy its 49 percent shares.

The other two companies, SLN and Prony, are also facing huge debts and a severe risk of bankruptcy due to the new nickel conditions on the world market, now dominated by new players such as Indonesia, which produces a much cheaper and abundant metal.

New ultimatum from Northern Province
On Tuesday, Northern province President Paul Néaoutyine added further pressure by threatening to suspend all permits for mining activities in his province’s nine sites, where southern nickel companies are also extracting.

In a release, Néaoutyine made references to payment guarantees deadlines on April 10 that had not been honoured by SLN.

It is understood SLN’s owner, Eramet, was scheduled to meet in a general meeting in Paris later on Tuesday.

The French pact — France is also a stakeholder in Eramet — would also help SLN provide longer-term guarantees.

Southern province President and Les Loyalists (pro-France) party leader Sonia Backès alleged on Tuesday that Néaoutyine wants to do everything he can to shut down SLN and block the nickel pact

“Now things are very clear — before it was all undercover; now it’s out in the open,” she said.

“Now we will do everything to maintain SLN, because this means 3000 jobs at stake.”

Congress dragging its feet
Yesterday, New Caledonia’s Congress was holding a meeting behind closed doors to again discuss the French pact.

The Congress decided to postpone its decision and, instead, suggested setting up a “special committee” to further examine the pact and the condition it is tied to, and more generally, “the nickel industry’s current challenges”.

Opponents to the agreement mainly argue that it would pose a risk of “loss of sovereignty” for New Caledonia on its precious metal resource.

They also consider the nickel industry stake-holding companies are not committing enough and that, instead, New Caledonia’s government is asked to raise up to US$80 million (NZ$132 million), mainly by way of new taxes imposed on taxpayers.

Last week, a group of Congressmen, mostly from pro-independence Union Calédonienne, one of the four components of the pro-independence FLNKS, with the backing of one pro-France party, Avenir Ensemble, had a motion adopted to postpone one more time the signing of the pact.

President Mapou defies pro-independence MPs
President Louis Mapou, himself from the pro-independence side, urged the supporters of the motion to “let [him] sign” last week during a Congress public sitting.

“Let’s do it . . .  Authorise us to go at it . . .  What are you afraid of?” he said.

“Are we afraid of our militants?”

Mapou said if there was no swift Congress response and support to sign the pact, for which he himself had asked the Congress for endorsement, he would “take [his] responsibility” and go ahead anyway.

“I will honour the commitment I made to the French State.”

He said if they wanted to to sanction him with a motion of no confidence to go ahead. He was not afraid of this.

Mapou also told the pro-independence side in Congress that he believed they khad ept postponing any Congress decision “because you want to engage in negotiations as part of [New Caledonia’s] political agreements”.

Last week, Backès, who expressed open support for Mapou’s “courage”, told Radio Rythme Bleu she and Mapou had both received death threats.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

Demonstrations have been held in New Caledonia — with more protests expected — from both pro- and anti-independence supporters after the French Senate endorsed a constitutional amendment bill to “unfreeze” the French Pacific territory’s electoral roll.

The Senators endorsed a move from the French government to allow French citizens to vote at local elections, provided they have been residing for at least 10 uninterrupted years.

The Senate vote will be followed by a similar vote in the French National Assembly (Lower House) on 13 May.

• READ MORE: Other New Caledonian politics reports

In June, both Houses of Parliament (the Senate and National Assembly) will gather to give a final green light to the text with a majority of two-thirds required for it to pass.

The Senate vote in Paris on Tuesday has since triggered numerous reactions from both the pro-France and the pro-independence parties.

Southern Province president and leader of the pro-France party Les Loyalistes, Sonia Backès, hailed the Senate’s decision, saying it came “despite strong pressures from the pro-independence parties”.

She said “we have to stay mobilised” in the face of the two other planned votes in the next few weeks, she said, announcing more demonstrations from the pro-France sympathisers, including one next Saturday.

Counter protests
On March 28, both pro-France and pro-independence militant supporters gathered in the thousands in downtown Nouméa, only a few hundred metres away on opposite sides of Nouméa’s iconic Coconut Square (now renamed Peace Square) — one in front of the Congress, the other in front of the local government’s building.

The marches each gathered more than 10,000 supporters under strong surveillance from some 500 police and security forces, who ensured the two crowds did not clash. No significant incident was reported.

Several officials have taken to social media to comment on the issue.

New Caledonia constituency’s MP in the National Assembly, Nicolas Metzdorf, posted that the electoral roll changes were “a national and international legal obligation” and “those who are calling [New] Caledonians to take to the streets to oppose this are taking a considerable risk”.

Pro-France Rassemblement (local) Congress caucus president Virgine Ruffenach posted: “We are engaged in a struggle for justice, for a democratic Caledonian society which respects international rules and does not reject anyone.”

French Home Affairs and Overseas Minister Gérald Darmanin, who initiated the constitutional amendment, wrote that the French government “remains more than ever open to a local agreement and has a mechanism in place that will allow to take the time to finalise it”.

Darmanin was referring to a related political issue — the need, as prescribed by the 1998 political Nouméa Accord, for all parties to meet and inclusively arrive at a political agreement regarding New Caledonia’s future.

The agreement is supposed to replace the Nouméa Accord and, in order to allow more time for those talks to produce some kind of a joint text, the dates for this year’s provincial elections have been postponed from May 2024 to December 15, 2024 “at the latest”.

‘Strong message to Paris’
On the pro-independence side, FLNKS-Union Calédonienne Congress caucus president Pierre-Channel Tutugoro conceded that the Senate vote’s results were “something to be expected”.

“Now we’re waiting for what comes next [the National Assembly and French Congress votes] and then we’ll know whether things will eventuate,” he said.

The Union Calédonienne, one major component of the four-party pro-independence FLNKS, has in a few months revived a so-called CCAT (Cellule de Coordination des Actions de Terrain, or Field Action Coordination Cell).

The CCAT, consisting of non-FLNKS pro-independence parties and trade unions, has since organised several demonstrations, including one on March 28 and the latest on April 2, the day the Senate vote took place.

This week, CCAT claimed it managed to gather about 30,000 participants, but the French High Commission’s count was 6000.

Reacting to the Senate vote on Wednesday, CCAT head Christian Tein announced more protest marches against the “unfreezing” of the electoral roll were to come . . . the next one being as soon as April 13 “to keep on sending a strong message to Paris”.

Tein said the march was scheduled to take place on Nouméa’s central Peace Square.

The protesters once again intend to ask that the French government withdraw its text, claiming the French state is no longer impartial and that it is trying to “force its way” to impose its local electoral roll change.

The same date was also chosen by pro-France leaders and sympathisers who want to make a demonstration of force to show their determination to have their voting rights recognised through this proposed constitutional amendment.

PALIKA to ‘review strategy’
Meanwhile, another major component of the FLNKS, the Kanak Liberation Party (PALIKA), held its general assembly last weekend.

Its spokesman, Jean-Pierre Djaïwé, told a news conference that PALIKA, while deploring that New Caledonia’s politics had significantly “radicalised”, was now considering “reviewing its strategy”.

He said PALIKA and FLNKS, who recently have displayed differences, must now reaffirm a strategy of unity and “the pro-independence movement’s will to work towards a peaceful future”.

“There’s no other alternative,” he said.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

An “organic law” to postpone New Caledonia’s provincial elections has passed the final hurdle and been endorsed by the French National Assembly.

During a session on Monday marked by poor attendance (only 104 MPs out of 577) and sometimes heated debates, 71 French MPs voted in favour and 31 against.

Late February, the same Bill was also endorsed by the French Upper House, the Senate, by a large majority of 307 for and 34 against.

• READ MORE: Other Kanaky New Caledonia politics reports

The “organic law” effectively moves the date of New Caledonia’s provincial elections (initially scheduled for May 2024) to December 15 “at the latest”.

The date change was clearly designed to provide more time for local politicians to arrive at an inclusive and bipartisan agreement which would lay the foundations for a political agreement and a new institutional status after the Nouméa Accord (signed in 1998) has been in force in the French Pacific archipelago for the past 25 years.

The Accord had prescribed that three self-determination referendums should take place in New Caledonia, which was the case over the past five years.

All three consultations (held in 2018, 2020 and 2021) yielded a narrow “no” to independence, although the third one (held in late 2021) had been contested by the pro-independence movement after a boycott due to the impact of the covid pandemic on indogenous Kanaks.

The Nouméa Accord stipulated that after those three referendums had been held, and if they had resulted in three “no” notes, then politicians should meet and hold forward-looking talks to analyse “the situation thus created”.

Over the past two years, France has tried to create the conditions for those talks to be held, but some components of the pro-independence umbrella FLNKS (Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front) are yet to join the local and inclusive format of the political talks.

In the pro-French camp, divisions have also surfaced with some parties attending talks but refusing to sit with other pro-French components.

Constitutional changes
The postponement of provincial elections now paves the way for another French government project, promoted by Home Affairs and Overseas Minister Gérald Darmanin — who has visited New Caledonia half a dozen times since 2023 — for a constitutional amendment directly related to New Caledonia’s political future.

The amendment is also related to local elections in the sense that it purports to modify the conditions of eligibility once prescribed, on a transitional basis, by the Nouméa Accord.

What has been since referred to as the “frozen” electoral roll (enforced since 2007) allowed only French citizens who had resided in New Caledonia before 1998 to vote in those provincial elections (for the three parliaments of the Southern, Northern and Loyalty Islands provinces).

The Constitutional amendment, if adopted by the French Congress (a special joint gathering of both the Upper and Lower Houses — the Senate and the National Assembly) by a majority of three fifths, would now change this and allow citizens to vote in the local elections provided they have been residing in New Caledonia for at least 10 uninterrupted years.

Darmanin has on several occasions defended the draft amendment, saying the “frozen” roll was not compatible with France’s “democratic principles” — that it effectively denied about 25,000 citizens (both indigenous Kanaks and non-Kanaks) in New Caledonia the right to vote at the local elections.

The new text would re-introduce “minimal democratic conditions”.

The constitutional amendment has been strongly criticised by pro-independence parties, who fear the “unfrozen” version of the electoral roll would create a situation whereby they could become a minority.

Currently, through the old system, pro-independence parties hold the majority in two of the three provincial assemblies (North and Loyalty Islands) as well as in New Caledonia’s territorial government (presided by a pro-independence leader, Louis Mapou).

The provincial elections results are also crucial in the sense that they are followed by a “trickle-down” effect — the Congress (territorial parliament) makeup is based on their results, and, in turn, the Congress members choose New Caledonia’s President who then chooses a “collegial” government.

“The minimum 10-year period seems perfectly reasonable and those who are against this are in fact against democracy,” Darmanin told reporters during his latest visit to New Caledonia last month.

Constitutional amendment debates
The postponement of provincial elections is designed to give local politicians more time to arrive at a French-desired local, inclusive and consensual agreement on New Caledonia’s political and institutional future.

Darmanin has also repeatedly insisted that if such agreement was reached “before July 1”, the French-drafted constitutional amendment would be replaced by the contents agreed locally and then submitted to the French Congress.

“I’ve always said that if there was a local agreement, even if we were just a few metres away from concluding such an agreement, we would look at the possibility of postponing or even stopping the constitutional process to include the new text,” he stressed last month.

Process gaining momentum
“But for now, all I can see is people not turning up at meetings and not taking their responsibilities,” he added.

The pro-independence umbrella FLNKS is due to hold its Congress on 23 March 23 amid apparent divisions within its component parties.

The French-drafted constitutional amendment is to begin its legislative journey on March 20 before the Senate’s Law Committee, then on March 27 during a Senate debate and then on May 13 before the French National Assembly.

Over the past few days, several French MPs have visited New Caledonia during fact-finding field missions.

The first one was a delegation of four MPs from the French Senate’s Law Committee which met a wide spectrum of local politicians ahead of the March 20 session in Paris.

Over two days, they claim to have held 26 “auditions” with a wide range of political and administrative players in New Caledonia in order to “better understand everyone’s respective positions”.

“Discussions were frank and in a climate of trust”, delegation leader and the Senate’s Law Committee President, Senator François-Noël Buffet, told a press conference on Monday.

Politicians urged to find their own agreement
“We would have liked an inclusive agreement between all of New Caledonia’s players. But for the time being, it’s not there yet . . .  But if an agreement comes, we’ll take it . . .  In fact, it would be best if things did not drag for too long,” Buffet said.

Before the senatorial visit, three MPs from the French National Assembly have also spent three days in New Caledonia, as part of a similar fact-finding mission.

But their trip came under a wider mission that also included French Polynesia and Wallis-and-Futuna to study possible statutory and institutional “evolutions” for France’s overseas territories.

They also commented on New Caledonia’s proposed constitutional amendment.

“This is a real tension-generating project . . .  It is therefore important that an agreement is found between [New] Caledonia’s politicians and to avoid that the French Parliament has to make a decision on New Caledonia’s future status.

“A decision concerning the future of nearly 300,000 people should not be left to French MPs, who know nothing about New Caledonia’s issues,” MP Davy Rimane told a press conference in Nouméa last Friday.

“So I’m urging my Caledonian colleagues to reach an agreement.”

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

One of the main components of New Caledonia’s pro-independence FLNKS umbrella, the Union Calédonienne (UC), says it has now suspended all discussions with two pro-French parties until further notice.

These are the Rassemblement and Les Loyalistes.

Public broadcaster NC la 1ère has reported the bone of contention is a series of recent comments made by pro-French politicians from those parties after a UC-organised demonstration in downtown Nouméa turned violent.

• READ MORE: Pro-independence protesters, French police clash in New Caledonia
• Other Kanaky New Caledonia reports

This happened during French Home Affairs and Overseas Minister Gérald Darmanin’s visit to New Caledonia.

During those clashes between protesters and French security forces, at least five gendarmes were hurt, one suffering a head trauma after being hit by an iron bar.

The protests were motivated by UC’s opposition to French government plans to amend the French Constitution and modify the rules of eligibility for voters at New Caledonia’s local elections.

Support for the UC and FLNKS is primarily from indigenous Kanaks who make up 41 percent of the population of 271,000, according to the 2019 census.

Lawsuit to ban activist group
Leaders from both pro-French parties filed a court case and called for the UC-reactivated group (CCAT — Cellule de coordination des actions de terrain — field action coordination cell), which organised the protest, to be officially dissolved.

In a statement, UC expressed “regret” at the violence during those clashes, but also accused those politicians of showing disrespect to the pro-independence camp.

Over the past two years, Darmanin has been repeatedly calling on all of New Caledonia’s political parties to hold talks together in an inclusive and bipartisan way and come up with a visionary agreement that would lay the foundations for a new political future.

The previous autonomy Nouméa Accord, signed in 1998, is now deemed to have reached the end of its 25-year lifespan.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

In a major electoral upset, Kanak independence politician Robert Xowie has won one of Kanaky New Caledonia’s two seats in the French Senate in Paris.

His second-round electoral victory over Loyalist leader Sonia Backès came on September 24, the 170th anniversary of France’s annexation of its Pacific dependency.

Xowie is the Mayor of Lifou and a former provincial president in the outlying Loyalty Islands.

• READ MORE: Other New Caledonia politics reports

He will take his seat in Paris alongside Georges Naturel, the Mayor of Dumbea and a dissident member of Rassemblement-Les Républicains, who ran against the endorsed candidate of the conservative anti-independence party.

The two new senators will replace the incumbents Pierre Frogier, the Senator from Rassemblement-Les Républicains first elected in 2011, and Gérard Poadja of the Calédonie Ensemble party, who won his seat at the last poll in 2017.

Unlike the popular vote for deputies in the French National Assembly, Senators are elected by 578 New Caledonian MPs, provincial assembly members and local government delegates.

The unexpected victory of two new senators is a major success for the Front de Libération Nationale Kanak et Socialiste (FLNKS), with the independence movement gaining a seat in the French Senate for the first time, while dealing a stinging blow to the Loyalist bloc.

Naturel elected in first round
In the first round of voting on Sunday, Naturel won his seat with a majority of 351 votes against Robert Xowie (259), Sonia Backès (225), Pierre Frogier (180), Gérard Poadja (48), Macate Wenehoua (6) and Manuel Millar (2).

In the second-round run-off, incumbents Frogier and Poadja and Manuel Millar withdrew their candidacies. Xowie faced off against Loyalist leader Sonia Backès, who already serves as President of New Caledonia’s Southern Province and as a minister for citizenship in the Borne government in Paris.

Given the FLNKS could only count on about 250 of the 578 possible voters, Xowie’s second-round score of 307 suggests that many anti-independence politicians and mayors backed him over Backès, who only won 246 votes in the run-off (the third candidate Wenehoua gained just 2 votes).

Local news media had suggested Backès would use her profile to win the seat, then hand it to her alternate Gil Brial while keeping her ministerial post — an arrogance that raises questions about her political judgement.

The election result is a major blow to Backès, who stood as a representative of French President Emmanuel Macron’s Renaissance party and was publicly endorsed by France’s Overseas Minister Gérald Darmanin.

His support for Backès angered the FLNKS, who condemned the minister’s statement as a breach of the supposed impartiality that the French State often proclaims. This outcome reflects poorly on the Overseas Minister, who is due to travel again to Noumea in late October, hoping to advance negotiations over a new draft political statute for New Caledonia.

As a member of the independence party Union Calédonienne, Xowie will now be supported by his alternate Valentine Eurisouke of the Party of Kanak Liberation (Palika).

Crucial time in Paris
He takes up the Senate post alongside Georges Naturel at a crucial time in Paris, as President Macron plans revisions of the French Constitution in early 2024, to change the electoral rolls in New Caledonia before scheduled Congressional and Assembly elections next May.

As supporters and opponents of independence debate new structures to replace New Caledonia’s 1998 Noumea Accord, Xowie stressed the importance of his new post in Paris:

“It is important that when we are going to talk about constitutional revision, the debate takes place involving us. We have a chance to be able to present the views of the FLNKS directly in the plenary sessions.”

Nic Maclellan is a correspondent for the Suva-based Islands Business news magazine. Republished with the author’s permission.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

Inclusive talks in Paris between France and Kanaky New Caledonia’s politicians have yielded outcomes, including a French-submitted document on its future.

The talks, held last week, aimed at resuming all-round dialogue over a possible future status for New Caledonia.

Since the end of 2021 and a series of three referendums on New Caledonia’s independence, talks had stalled.

• READ MORE: Other Kanaky New Caledonia reports

Paris has tried but failed to bring pro-French and pro-independence parties to the same table.

Instead, there were only “bilateral” talks, separately, between France and the pro-independence camp, and between Paris and the pro-France camp.

During the latest round of talks from September 4 to 8, all sides were present for the first time in almost two years.

French Home Affairs and Overseas Minister Gérald Darmanin put on the table a working document which, he said, albeit “ambitious”, remained open to modifications from all sides of New Caledonia’s political spectrum.

Sensitive topics
The document covers sensitive topics such as New Caledonia’s future right to self-determination, but also ways to build and strengthen the notion of a “New Caledonian citizenship”.

“I have been personally involved, I have travelled to New Caledonia four times over the past year . . . We have had a lot of exchanges and a climate of confidence has emerged,” Darmanin told the French newspaper Le Monde.

“There was goodwill from all sides … We have decided to put this project on the table because nobody was doing it,” he added.

The working document, Darmanin said, contained what he described as a “modernisation of New Caledonia’s institutions”, including changes to the areas of responsibilities both on New Caledonia’s government level, but also for its three provinces.

“The project also reaffirms that New Caledonia remains French, but retains a specific paragraph in the [French] Constitution, which means the 1998 Nouméa Accord will not be affected in terms of a New Caledonian citizenship within the French citizenship” he told Le Monde in the same weekend interview.

Another sensitive issue was New Caledonia’s electoral roll for local elections to be held next year.

For the past 25 years, as part of the autonomy Nouméa Accord signed in 1998, the list of eligible voters was “frozen” to only include residents who were born in New Caledonia or established there before 1998 (including their descendents).

Temporary measure
The measure was supposed to be temporary for the duration of the Accord, which is now deemed to have expired.

From France’s point of view, these special measures are no longer tenable and should be brought closer to a one-person, one-vote system before New Caledonia’s provincial elections are held in 2024.

On New Caledonia’s right to self-determination, Darmanin’s draft “no longer includes a date or a timeline to achieve it”, he said, adding this would remove the “Damocles sword” of a “binary question YES or NO to independence”.

Instead, any future project would be submitted “by New Caledonians themselves”, and should be endorsed by a minimum two-thirds of the local Congress.

The document is understood to serve as a basis for further discussions to be finalised by the end of 2023, Darmanin said, adding the final version would result in a French Constitutional amendment scheduled to be put to the necessary vote of the French Congress (both the Senate and the National Assembly).

He said if no agreement was reached by then, “we will amend the electoral roll in order to hold provincial elections [in 2024]. This is a democratic requirement”.

Darmanin said he would travel again to New Caledonia at the “end of October” to pursue talks with all parties.

‘Responsibility in face of history’
“[Last] week, pro-independence and anti-independence (politicians) have held meetings with me in the same room . . .  I am counting on those parties’ great sense of responsibility in the face of history,” he said.

French President Emmanuel Macron was in New Caledonia late July, when he announced plans for the Constitutional amendment and specific arrangements for New Caledonia sometime early 2024.

Last Friday, he met visiting New Caledonia politicians to mark the end of the week-long Paris talks.

“The President insisted on the need to reach an agreement in order to fully engage on the path of forgiveness and future,” Macron’s office said in a statement.

On the pro-French side, Sonia Backès — the pro-France President of New Caledonia’s Southern Province — said that “by October 11, we should have a document that lists all points of agreement and also those points of disagreement”.

“We have the feeling things are moving forward,” pro-independence FLNKS delegation member Victor Tutugoro told French public media television Outre-Mer la 1ère. “So we’re going to start working on this [document] and really open negotiations by the end of October,” he added.

All three referendums held between 2018 and 2021 have resulted in a majority of voters rejecting independence in New Caledonia.

Final steps required
France regards those results as one of the final steps required from the Nouméa Accord, signed 10 years after another deal, the Matignon-Oudinot Accord, was struck in 1988 to bring an end to half a decade of a bloody quasi-civil war.

But the FLNKS, the umbrella of pro-independence parties, is contesting the outcome of the third referendum held in late 2021, which was largely boycotted by the indigenous Kanak population, saying the covid restrictions and subsequent traditional mourning deterred many of the indigenous Kanaks from voting.

While pro-French parties have seen those three referendums results as evidence of the will for New Caledonia to remain French, the FLNKS is claiming it wants to bring the matter before the International Court of Justice.

It recently received in-principle support from the Melanesian Spearhead Group (MSG) leaders who held their summit in Port Vila, Vanuatu in late August.

The MSG consists of Fiji, Vanuatu, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands and FLNKS as a non-state member.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

French president Emmanuel Macron says he will forge ahead with processing a new statute for New Caledonia, replacing the 1998 Noumea Accord.

New Caledonia held three referendums on independence from France under the Noumea Accord, and all resulted in a vote against it.

But the last referendum result, held in December 2021, is disputed, as it was boycotted by the indigenous Kanak people due to the devastation caused by the covid-19 pandemic.

• LISTEN TO RNZ PACIFIC WAVES: Interview with Nic Maclellan
• Other Kanaky New Caledonia decolonisation reports

The main body of the independence movement has been quiet during the trip, waiting to see what was put on the table.

Islands Business correspondent Nic Maclellan told RNZ Pacific that Macron, speaking in Noumea yesterday, threw out a challenge to them.

He said independence leaders, particularly from the Caledonian Union party, the largest pro-independence party boycotted the president’s speech.

“Macron threw out a challenge to them, basically saying that the French state would forge ahead with the process to introduce a new political statute for New Caledonia, replacing the Noumea Accord, the framework agreement that’s lasted for three decades,” Maclellan said.

The President of the New Caledonia territorial government, Louis Mapou, did welcome Macron.

“[The French President] talked about the reform of political institutions. A major step which won large applause from the crowd was to unfreeze the electoral rolls for the looming provincial and congressional elections to be held in May next year,” Maclellan said.

“That will allow thousands more French nationals to vote than are currently able to under under the Noumea Accord.

“And he basically said that he would be moving ahead to review the Constitution in early 2024.

“The Noumea Accord is entrenched in its own clauses of the French constitution, so there needs to be a major constitutional change. He suggested he was going to move forward pretty strongly on that.”

Rebuilding the economy
Maclellan said Macron also talked about the future role of the French dependency around two key areas.

The first was about rebuilding the economic and social models of New Caledonia, addressing an inequality, particularly for poor people from the Kanak indigenous community, questions of employment.

He said a major section of his speech focused on the nickel industry, and the need to solve the energy crisis that powered nickel with improved productivity in this key sector.

France 1 television, the state broadcaster, reports Macron confirmed more than 200 soldiers for the armed forces of New Caledonia.

But there will also be the creation of a military “Pacific academy, right here, to train soldiers from all over the region”.

Emmanuel Macron is also visiting Vanuatu and Papua New Guinea.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

France has deployed Rafale jet fighters during a military ceremony in New Caledonia, marking President Emmanuel Macron’s first official day in the Pacific.

Macron arrived in Noumea overnight on a visit aimed at bolstering his Indo-Pacific strategy and reaffirming France’s role in the region.

The historic five-day trip includes a visit to Vanuatu and Papua New Guinea. It is the first time a French president has visited independent Pacific Islands, according to French officials.

• LISTEN TO RNZ PACIFIC WAVES: French President begins tour of the Pacific
• Other Kanaky New Caledonia decolonisation reports

A big focus will be asserting France’s role in what Macron has called a “balancing force” between the United States and China.

France assumes sovereignty for three Pacific territories: New Caledonia, French Polynesia and Wallis and Futuna.

However, not everyone was happy about the presidential visit.

New Caledonia was politically divided and seeking a way forward after three referendums on independence.

Referendum boycott
The outcome of all three polls was a “no” to independence but the result of the third vote, which was boycotted by Kanaks, was disputed.

Rallies were expected during the French President’s visit.

Local committees of the main pro-independence party the Caledonian Union have called for “peaceful” but determined rallies.

Their presence will be felt particularly when Macron heads north today to the east coast town of Thio, as well as when he gathers the New Caledonian community together tomorrow afternoon for a speech, where he is expected to make a major announcement.

About 40 percent of the population are indigenous Kanak, most of whom support independence. Pro-independence parties, which have been in power since 2017, want full sovereignty by 2025.

Macron is expected to meet with all sides in Noumea this week.

A large delegation has joined Macron on his visit, including Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna and Defence Minister Sébastien Lecornu.

Foreign minister in Suva
Colonna will also travel to Suva, Fiji today, the first visit of a French foreign affairs minister to the country.

She will meet with the Fijian Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka and the Pacific Islands Forum Deputy Secretary General Filimon Manoni.

The move was to “strengthen its commitment in the region”, French officials have said.

Meetings have also been set with Papua New Guinea Prime Minister James Marape when the delegation travels there on Friday.

France has investments in PNG to develop its gas resources under French-owned multinational oil and gas company TotalEnergies.

Vanuatu chiefs appeal
Emmanuel Macron will be in Port Vila on Wednesday.

Vanuatu’s Malvatumauri National Council of Chiefs want Prime Minister Ishmael Kalsakau to let President Macron know that the Mathew and Hunter Islands belong to Vanuatu and are not part of New Caledonia.

Tanna chief Jean Pierre Tom said ni-Vanuatu people were expecting his visit to be a “game changer and not a re-enforcement of colonial rule”.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

En vol vers la Nouvelle-Calédonie, accueilli par nos Rafale qui viennent confirmer que la France est une puissance de l’Indo-Pacifique ! pic.twitter.com/yj8r1PHOMi

— Emmanuel Macron (@EmmanuelMacron) July 24, 2023

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

New Caledonia’s Kanak national liberation movement has told the UN Decolonisation Committee that France has “robbed” the indigenous people of their independence and has appealed for help.

Magalie Tingal-Lémé, the permanent representative of the Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front (FLNKS) at the UN, told a session of the Committee of 24 (C24) — as the special decolonisation body is known — that the French authorities had failed to honour the 1998 Noumea Accord self-determination aspirations, especially by pressing ahead with the third independence referendum in December 2021 in defiance of Kanak opposition.

More than half the eligible voting population boycotted the third ballot after the previous two referendums in 2018 and 2020 recorded narrowing defeats for independence.

• READ MORE: Politician tells UN New Caledonia is not a colony
• Unfinished business over New Caledonian decolonisation – new challenges after ‘stolen’ referendum
• Independence for Kanaky: A media and political stalemate or a ‘three strikes’ Frexit challenge?
• Other Kanaky New Caledonia reports

The pro-independence Kanak groups wanted the referendum delayed due to the devastating impact that the covid-19 pandemic had had on the indigenous population.

Tingal-Lémé told the UN session that speaking as an indigenous Kanak woman, she represented the FLNKS and “every time we speak before your institution, we carry the voice of the colonised people”.

“When we speak of colonisation, we are necessarily speaking of the people who have suffered the damage, the stigma and the consequences,” she said in her passionate speech.

“On September 24, my country will have been under colonial rule for 170 years.”

Accords brought peace
Tingal-Lémé said two political accords with France had brought peace to New Caledonia after the turbulent 1980s, “the second of which — the Nouméa Accord — [was taking] the country on the way for full emancipation”.

“And it is in a spirit of dialogue and consensus that the indépendentistes have kept their word, despite, and in the name, of spilled blood.”

In 2018, the first of three scheduled votes on sovereignty, 56.4 percent rejected independence with an 81 percent turnout of the 174,995 voters eligible to vote.

Two years later, independence was again rejected, but this time with an increased support to almost 47 percent. Turnout also slightly grew to 85.69 percent.

However, in December 2021 the turnout dropped by about half with most Kanaks boycotting the referendum due to the pandemic. Unsurprisingly, this time the “yes” vote dropped to a mere 3.5 percent.

“Since December 12, 2021, when France maintained the third and final referendum — even though we had requested its postponement due to the human trauma of covid-19 — we have never ceased to contest its holding and its results,” Tingal-Lémé said.

Nearly 57 percent of voters had not turned out on the day due to the covid boycott.

‘We’ll never accept this outcome’
“We believe that through this illegitimate referendum, the French state has robbed us of our independence. We will never accept this outcome!

“And so, unable to contest the results under French internal law, we are turning to the international community for an impartial institution to indicate how to resume a process that complies with international rules on decolonisation.

“Through the Nouméa Accord, France has committed itself and the populations concerned to an original decolonisation process, which should lead to the full emancipation of Kanaky.

“Today, the FLNKS believes that the administering power has not fulfilled its obligations.”

Tingal-Lémé said the “latest evidence” of this failure was a New Caledonian decolonisation audit, whose report had just been made public.

She said this audit report had been requested by the FLNKS for the past five years so that it would be available — along with the assessment of the Nouméa Accord — before the three referendums to “enlighten voters”.

“The pro-independence movement found itself alone in raising public awareness of the positive stakes of self-determination, and had to campaign against a state that sided with the anti-independence groups.”

Magalie Tingal-Lémé’s speech to the UN Decolonisation Committee. Video: MTL

Entrusted to a ‘market’ firm
Also, the French government had “entrusted” this work to a firm specialising in market analysis strategies, she said.

“This shows how much consideration the administering power has given to this exercise and to its international obligations regarding the decolonisation.

“Frankly, who can believe in the objectivity of an audit commissioned by a government to which the leader of New Caledonia’s non-independence movement belongs?” Tingal-Lémé asked.

“It is already clear that, once again, France does not wish to achieve a decolonisation in the Pacific.

“This is why the FLNKS is petitioning the C24 to support our initiative to the United Nations, with the aim of getting an advisory opinion to the International Court of Justice.

“The objectives of this initiative is to request the ICJ to rule on our [indigenous] rights, those of the colonised people of New Caledonia, which we believe were violated on December 12, 2021.”

Advisory opinion
The FLNKS wanted the ICJ to make an advisory opinion on the way France “has conducted the decolonisation process, in particular by holding a referendum without the participation of the Kanak people.”

Tingal-Lémé pleaded: “We sincerely hope that you will heed our call.”

According to New Caledonia’s 2019 census, the indigenous Kanaks comprise a 41 percent share of the 271,000 multiethnic population. Europeans make up 24 percent, Wallisians and Futunans 8 percent, and a mix of Indonesians, ni-Vanuatu, Tahitians and Vietnamese are among the rest.

Earlier today, RNZ Pacific reported that a New Caledonian politician had claimed at the UN that the territory was “no longer a colony” and should be withdrawn from the UN decolonisation list.

The anti-independence member of the Territorial Congress and Vice-President of the Southern Province, Gil Brial, said he was a descendant of French people deported to New Caledonia 160 years ago, who had been “blended with others, including the indigenous Kanaks”.

He said the only colonisation left today was the “colonisation of the minds of young people by a few separatist leaders who mixed racism, hatred and threats”, reports RNZ Pacific.

Dr David Robie is editor of Asia Pacific Report.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by David Robie.

New Caledonia’s pro-independence parties are prepared to negotiate changes to the provincial electoral rolls, according to French Overseas Minister Gerald Darmanin.

On his second visit to Noumea in less than four months, the minister announced the apparent change in the stance of the pro-independence FLNKS movement, which until now has ruled out any willingness to open the roll.

As yet, there has been no official statement from the FLNKS (Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front), which is still demanding comprehensive discussions with Paris on a timetable to restore the sovereignty lost in 1853.

• READ MORE: Kanaky New Caledonia’s FLNKS wants ICJ advice on contested vote
• Other Kanaky New Caledonia reports

It insists on a dialogue between the “coloniser and the colonised”.

The restricted roll is a key feature of the 1998 Noumea Accord, which was devised as the roadmap to the territory’s decolonisation after New Caledonia was reinscribed on the United Nations’ list of non-self-governing territories in 1986.

Under the terms of the accord, voters in the provincial elections must have been enrolled by 1998.

In 2007, the French constitution was changed accordingly, accommodating a push by the Kanaks to ensure the indigenous population was not at risk of being further marginalised by waves of migrants.

‘Enormous progress’
However, anti-independence parties have in recent years campaigned for an opening of the roll to the more than 40,000 people who have settled since 1998.

Darmanin hailed the FLNKS’ willingness to negotiate on the issue as “enormous progress”, saying the issue surrounding the rolls had been blocked for a long time.

He said after his meetings with local leaders the FLNKS considered 10 years’ residence as sufficient to get enrolled.

The minister said he had proposed seven years, while anti-independence politicians talked about three to five years.

In March, Darmanin said the next elections, which are due in 2024, would not go ahead with the old rolls.

However, a senior member of the pro-independence Caledonian Union, Roch Wamytan, who is President of the Territorial Assembly, said “they had started discussions but that they had not given a definite approval”.

For Wamytan, an agreement on the rolls was still far off.

Impact of the Noumea Accord
Darmanin tabled a report on the outcomes achieved by the Noumea Accord, whose objectives included forming a community with a common destiny following the unrest of the 1980s.

It found that “the objective of political rebalancing, through the accession of Kanaks to responsibilities, can be considered as achieved”.

However, the report concluded that the accord “paradoxically contributed to maintain the political divide that the common destiny was supposed to transcend”.

It noted that the three referendums on independence from France between 2018 and 2021 “confirmed the antagonisms and revealed the difficulty of bringing together a majority of qualified voters” around a common cause.

Darmanin also presented a report about the decolonisation process under the auspices of the United Nations.

It noted that “with the adoption of the first plan of actions aimed at the elimination of colonialism in 1991, the [French] state endeavoured to collaborate closely with the UN and the C24 in order to accompany in the greatest transparency the process of decolonisation of New Caledonia”.

It said that France hosted and accompanied two UN visits to New Caledonia before the referendums, facilitated the visit of UN electoral experts when electoral lists were prepared as well as at each of the three referendums between 2018 and 2021.

Kanaks reject legitimacy
From a technical point of view, the three votes provided under the Noumea Accord were valid.

However, the FLNKS refuses to recognise the result of the third referendum as the legitimate outcome of the decolonisation process after the indigenous Kanaks boycotted the vote and only a small fraction cast their ballots.

As French courts recognise the vote as constitutional despite the low turnout, the FLNKS has sought input from the International Court of Justice in a bid to have the outcome annulled.

The FLNKS still insists on having more bilateral talks with the French government on a timetable to restore the territory’s sovereignty.

Since the controversial 2021 referendum, the FLNKS has refused to engage in tripartite talks on a future statute, and Darmanin has again failed to get an assurance from the FLNKS that it would join anti-independence politicians for such talks.

Last month, Darmanin evoked at the UN the possibility of self-determination for New Caledonia being attained in about 50 years — a proposition being scoffed at by the pro-independence camp.

In Noumea, he said he was against a further vote with the option of “yes” or “no”, and rather wanted to work towards a vote on a new status.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

New Caledonia’s largest pro-independence party says the latest French pronouncement on self-determination is an insult to the decolonisation process.

Amid a dispute over the validity of the referendum process under the Noumea Accord, French Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin told the United Nations last week that self-determination might take “one or two generations”.

The Caledonian Union said the statement contradicted the 1998 Noumea Accord which was to conclude after 20 years with New Caledonia’s full emancipation.

• READ MORE: France briefs UN on New Caledonia decolonisation impasse
• Other French Pacific decolonisation reports

However, three referendums on independence from France between 2018 and 2021 to complete the Accord resulted in the rejection of full sovereignty.

But the Caledonian Union says the trajectory set out in the Noumea Accord has not changed and the process must conclude with New Caledonia attaining full sovereignty.

In a statement, the party has accused France of being contradictory by defending peoples’ right to self-determination at the UN while not respecting the colonised Kanak people’s request and imposing the 2021 referendum.

The date was set by Paris but because of the impact of the covid-19 pandemic on the indigenous Kanak population, the pro-independence parties asked for the vote to be postponed.

The French government refused to accede to the plea and as a consequence the pro-independence parties stayed away from the poll in protest.

Although more than 96 percent voted against full sovereignty, the turnout was 43 percent, with record abstention among Kanaks at the centre of the decolonisation issue.

Pro-independence parties therefore refuse to recognise the result as a legitimate outcome of the decolonisation process.

They insist that the vote is not valid despite France’s highest administrative court finding the referendum was legal and binding.

Darmanin due back in Noumea
The latest meeting of the Caledonian Union’s leadership this week was to prepare for next week’s talks with Darmanin, who is due in Noumea for a second time in three months.

Paris wants to advance discussions on a new statute after the referendums.

In its statement, the Caledonian Union said it wanted France to specify what its policies for New Caledonia would be, adding that for the party, they had to be in line with the provisions of the Noumea Accord.

The party said fresh talk of self-determination should not be a pretext of France to divert from the commitments in the Accord.

It also said it would not yet enter into formal discussions with the anti-independence parties about the way forward although they also were Noumea Accord signatories.

The party also said it would not discuss the make-up of New Caledonia’s electoral rolls until after a path to full sovereignty had been drawn up in bilateral talks with the French government.

On La Premiere television on Sunday night, Congress President Roch Wamytan, who is a Noumea Accord signatory and a Caledonian Union member, said his side had a different timetable than Paris.

While the French government was focused on next year’s provincial elections, Wamytan said it was not possible to discuss in the space of a month or two the future of a country or of a people that had been colonised.

He also wondered if Darmanin was serious when he said it could take two generations, or 50 years, for self-determination.

Wamytan said after the failed 2021 referendum, the two sides had diametrically opposed positions.

However, he hoped at some point a common platform could be found so that in the coming months a way would be found as a “win-win for New Caledonia”.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

New Caledonia’s largest pro-independence party has been told that France is “panicking” and afraid of losing New Caledonia.

The head of the Caledonian Union Daniel Goa briefed the party in Koumac after a week of meetings of a cross-section of New Caledonian politicians with the French government in Paris earlier this month.

Goa said Paris kept reneging on earlier undertakings by pressing ahead with efforts to undo the 1998 Noumea Accord on the territory’s decolonisation in order to maintain its international influence.

• READ MORE: Unfinished business over New Caledonian decolonisation – new challenges after ‘stolen’ referendum
• Other Kanaky New Caledonia reports

He said there was major incomprehension on part of the French government of what the bilateral talks in Paris were supposed to be about.

Goa said Paris wanted concrete decisions in circumstances favouring the French government.

However, Goa said the decolonisation process and New Caledonia’s accession to sovereignty would be discussed in New Caledonia.

He again warned France against opening up the restricted electoral roll used for provincial elections.

Bid to extend voting rights
Anti-independence parties have urged Paris to extend voting rights for the 2024 elections after the 2021 referendum saw a majority of voters reject full sovereignty.

The pro-independence side, however, largely abstained from the vote in 2021 because of the covid-19 pandemic and still refuses to recognise the result as the legitimate outcome of the decolonisation process.

Under the terms of the Noumea Accord voting in provincial elections is restricted to indigenous Kanaks and those who have been residents in the territory since 1998.

About 40,000 French citizens are excluded from provincial elections but can take part in France’s parliamentary and presidential elections.

Goa warned of what he called irreversible solutions if France imposed a change to the rolls, adding that there would be a risk of there never being any election.

He said the survival of the Kanaks hinged on this issue.

Goa said opening the roll to recent arrivals would create a new imbalance and extinguish the Kanaks’ vision of politics.

‘Colonial state’ opposed
He stressed that the Kanaks would no longer allow the colonial state to impose itself.

He said the French state was pushing the Kanaks to their last entrenchments, but they would be present in their own way to take responsibility to liberate their country.

Goa said the Kanaks’ sovereignty was no longer negotiable, adding that the land is not a land of France and will never be a land of France.

He said it was a shame to imagine the worst, but France was going against the “wind of history” as the United Nations kept calling for the eradication of colonialism.

Goa said France had to choose between moving in the direction of history or ending up in the “rubbish bin of colonial history”.

He put Paris on notice that a refusal to restore the territory’s sovereignty would drive the Kanak people to seek support elsewhere.

Goa said France did not and would not recognise the Kanaks’ rights, which would prompt the pro-independence camp to turn to new allies.

France ‘lonely in Pacific’
He said all major powers were around the Pacific rim but France, as only a small European country, was lonely in the Pacific.

Goa said the French army never defended New Caledonia when it was threatened, but only killed Kanaks, plundered their land, carried out punitive expeditions, brutally treated and displaced Kanak populations, and killed their elders.

He also castigated President Emmanuel Macron’s China policy, asking whether France could be trusted.

Goa said France still wanted to give the illusion of existing in a concert of nations but the President, out of clumsiness, had betrayed his European and American allies by pledging allegiance to China.

He said in the Pacific context, France would on one hand “sell” New Caledonia to China and on the other hand, France kept saying not to deal with China in whatever way, brandishing the “Chinese threat” as the worst thing that could happen.

Goa said with the French presidency and the country adrift, there was a risk for New Caledonia to be dragged into a void.

Backes slams Goa’s speech
Daniel Goa’s speech was criticised by a leading anti-independence politician, Sonia Backes, who regarded Goa’s comments about the electoral rolls as a call to violence.

Backes, president of the Southern Province and a junior member of the French government, told La Première television that Goa’s threats of action in case of changes to the rolls were unacceptable.

She also took issue with Goa’s warning that the Kanaks would ally themselves with other powers, should their ambition to attain independence be thwarted by France.

Backes said the anti-independence coalition had referred the speech to the public prosecutor for alleged calls for violence and sedition.

She wondered if Goa considered that those opposed to independence had no place on this world and could not be asked to discuss the future.

Backes said the other side needed to explain itself.

Institutions not functioning
She said her side had an interest in finding a consensus because New Caledonia’s institutions no longer functioned.

She added that it was no longer possible to have 45,000 people excluded from the rolls and do nothing for them while waiting for a possible consensus on how to open the rolls.

After the rejection of full sovereignty in three referendums and the expiry of the Noumea Accord, a new statute for New Caledonia has to be created.

While the pro-independence parties want Paris to give a timetable to full independence, the anti-independence parties want Paris to realign the territory with France.

After this month’s talks in Paris, discussions will be continued in Noumea in June when  French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin plans his next visit.

His ministry said in May he would go to the United Nations in New York to discuss the situation in New Caledonia.

The territory has been on the UN decolonisation list since 1986, based on the Kanak people’s internationally recognised right to self-determination.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

By Roch Wamytan, leader of the FLNKS delegation

First of all, allow me, Madam Prime Minister, to greet you on behalf of the Front de Liberation Nationale Kanak et Socialiste (FLNKS) delegation for this first meeting with you.

Despite the difficult situation prevailing in France, you were able to take some time in your busy schedule to discuss with our delegation and we recognise your significant consideration of the situation of New Caledonia (NC). We have also had the opportunity to communicate with you by phone with some of our delegation members and I thank you.

Today is the first time that we meet, and it is important to be able to discuss face-to-face and try to understand each other. It is a huge responsibility has been passed on to you, that of an ancient civilization characterised as “the Kanak people of Melanesian and Austronesian descent” which has been present in the Caledonian archipelago for more than 3000 years.

Close to 250 years ago (1774), this ancient people crossed the path of Europeans through James Cook, and then that of the French on September 24, 1853, the date of the possession of the islands by France. It is from this time onward that the chaotic history of relations between France and us, the Kanak people, began.

Almost 170 years later, we are still debating these relations that bind us: You as the representative of France, and us, the members of the FLNKS delegation, led by two of the signatories of the Nouméa Agreement, Victor Tutugoro and myself, accompanied by Gilbert Tyuienon, Mickaël Forrest, Jean Pierre Djaïwé, Digoue, Aloisio Sako, Jean Creugnet and our technical team.

As you know, Madam Prime Minister, the FLNKS represents the national liberation movement of the colonised Kanak people, since the re-inscription in 1986 of New Caledonia on the United Nations’ list of countries to decolonise. Therefore, we stand in front of you as the representative of the governing authority of France, according to international law.

On February 26, 2023, the popular congress of the FLNKS and the nationalist and Indigenous movement has validated the unique and unitary trajectory for the country’s achievement of full sovereignty and independence, through negotiation with the governing authority, France, which is the governing power since the possession of New Caledonia on September 24, 1853.

For 170 years (September 24, 1853) we have lived under the governance of France, which has become since 1986 the administering power of the New Caledonia, the latter being considered a non-self-governing territory. This governance has never been accepted by our people and the genealogy of the struggle to free ourselves of it is well known. Allow me to share some key dates:

● From 1774 (arrival of James Cook) to 1853 (formal possession): People had to struggle against the harmful effects of microbial epidemics introduced by the first Europeans, faced with a population which lacked immunity. As a result, close to 90 percent of the population was eradicated. Survivors organised themselves and survived thanks to their ancestral resilience when faced with diseases and European invasion. Then, colonisation followed.

● From 1853 to 1924: The violent possession of land, the settlement of convicts and deportees, the revolts of chiefdoms and the bloody repression of the colonial army with its massacres, ethnocide, population displacement and transportation.

● From 1925 to 1946: The population reaches its lowest point, approximately 25,000 people. It is the point of departure for a rebirth, through reconstruction, the restructuring of chiefdoms with catholic and protestant missions.

● From 1945 to 1946: New Caledonia misses its first opportunity to achieve independence. Indeed, the President of the United States of America, [Franklin D.] Roosevelt, was of the idea that the French defeat would de facto, lead to the end of its empire, then in ruin. He was therefore planning on changing the status of Dakar, Indochina and other French possessions and was advising France to progressively give up its
possessions in Asia and Africa.

When it came to New Caledonia, this colony was to be removed from France and placed under the governance of the USA, similarly to Palau, before giving it its independence back. That is what the work of Marie Claude Smouts, researcher at the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), shows in her book La France à l’ONU.

● From 1946 to 1958: It is the end of the Native Code, the Kanak people are granted citizenship and enter institutions. It also marks New Caledonia’s second missed opportunity to become independent since in the 1958 constitutional referendum where the electoral roll was predominantly Kanak.

Under the influence of the Catholic and Protestant churches supported by the European section of the Union Calédonienne (UC) party, this party opted for YES, and therefore to remain within the French Republic. The framework law or autonomy law was in turn put in place.

● 1963-1968 and 1975-1984: Abolition of the framework law and birth of the Kanak pro-independence movement. 1975 was the year of the “Mélanésia 2000” cultural revolution, and the creation of the Front Indépendantiste in 1979.

● 1984 – 1988: It was the semi-failure of the Nainville-les-Roches discussions, the creation of the FLNKS, and the Kanak nationalist insurrection and revolts which lasted four long years.

● 1988 – 1989: [This] was the year of the signing of the Matignon Agreement and one year [later] the murder of Jean-Marie Tjibaou and Yeiwene Yeiwene since they did not have the FLNKS mandate to sign this agreement. An agreement which aimed to restore peace and initiate the rebalancing, but not to settle the issue of independence.

● 1988-1998-2018: the country enters a process of emancipation and decolonisation with the Matignon and Nouméa agreements by having “rebalancing” and “the impartiality of the state” as guiding principles.

● 2018-2022: this was the series of three referenda which resulted, according to France, in three NOs to full-sovereignty and independence. A progression of the YES to full sovereignty and independence between the first and second consultations is, however, notable. The third one is not recognised as politically legitimate by the FLNKS and its regional and international support due to 60 percent of non-participation, which includes the almost entirety of the Kanak people.

This explains the procedure at the International Court of Justice at The Hague. It is possible to estimate that the participation of the Kanak population to a third referendum organised in normal and transparent conditions, with an impartiality of the State would have allowed the country’s achievement of independence.

However, it marked the third missed opportunity to reach independence in our chaotic history of relations with France.

This brief historical reminder traces a trajectory that began with the arrival of the Europeans in Oceania in 1774 and which will continue until the achievement of full sovereignty in the coming years as part of a renewed relationship with France and Europe for a country that will be fully integrated in its geographical area. This has been its history for 3000 years, and this will be its future.

Indeed, experience has demonstrated that in the history of decolonisation in the Maghreb region, in Asia, in sub-Saharan Africa and other parts of the world: the colonised never give up on the question of their asserted identity. It is the same for our people which have always fought against an oppressive and forced assimilatory system.

While it fought against a system, the Kanak people respect France and its inhabitants. France has a history that we respect: it is a great nation which defends universal values. Moreover, hundreds of our youth have given their life during the two world conflicts. France has brought us [the] Catholic and Protestant religion[s] as well as education. That is what the preamble of the Nouméa Agreement acknowledges.

Due to being unheard in its struggle against a colonial system, we can consider that the nationalist movement which started in the early 1970s was a response to the abolition of the framework law put in place by the 1958 constitution, then removed in 1963. The movement peaked in 1984-1988, with the painful events of Ouvéa, where the special troops of the French armed forces intervened to maintain the public order.

The number of Kanak leaders having lost their life during this period up until 1989 is significant, especially considering their quality and our small population. In light of this dead-end situation, the handshake between Jean-Marie Tjibaou, Jacques Lafleur, and Michel Rocard, as planned, allowed for peace to be restored.

And the rebalancing included in the Matignon Agreement approved by the national referendum of 1988.

This ten-year period between 1988 and 1998 was meant to be an opportunity for a more balanced development of the territory. The no. 1 text of the Matignon Agreement is entitled: “The condition for a lasting peace — The impartial State at the service of all.” The press release of June 26, 1988, also insists on this point: “The impartiality of the State must be guaranteed, the security and protection of all must be ensured”.

And on August 20, the Minister of Overseas Departments and Territories, Louis Le Pensec, declared before the agreement signing ceremony: “France can only be a referee if its spoken word inspires trust”.

In 1998, the Matignon Agreement gave way to a new agreement, the Nouméa Agreement, which won the support of the Kanak people but was rejected by the non-independence majority of the South[ern] Province. This agreement has received an almost unanimous approval from the Kanak people for several reasons:

– It maintained peace and allowed for the continuation of rebalancing policies;
– It allowed the construction of a project of society that would take colonialism
into account, following the Nainville-les-Roches Agreement in 1983; [and]
– Its preamble and guidance document de facto recognised Kanak identity and
committed to the establishment of a new governance of New Caledonia, in the form
of a sui generis collectivity with autonomy, in a perspective of independence.

New Caledonia, whose vocation for independence was recognised following the 1988 national referendum, was taking the path of the construction of a common destiny resting on a “Caledonian citizenship” and the irreversibility of the process of decolonisation and emancipation.

Thus, for the colonised Kanak people, the responsibility of the State as the third partner of the Nouméa Agreement is to guarantee this irreversible and sincere process, allowing New Caledonia to endorse its vocation to be a sovereign state, like the other sovereign states in the region. That is the meaning of the massive YES which was given by the Kanak people at the referendum to ratify this agreement on November 8, 1998.

It was the same for the national referendum of November 6, 1988. Under no condition can these two referenda be considered a reason for yet another status of integration of New Caledonia within France.

For the Kanak people, the process of self-determination must continue to follow up on the two referenda of 2018 and 2020. The Nouméa Agreement, which remains the basis on which the future of New Caledonia must be permanently built and sealed, is clear and unambiguous both in the preamble and the guidance document: Decolonisation is the way to rebuild a sustainable social bond between the communities that live in New Caledonia.

A new step must be taken to mark the full acknowledgement of Kanak identity, conditional to the reviewing of the social relationship between all the communities that live in New Caledonia and through the sharing of sovereignty with France before the full sovereignty of the country to be.

The culminating point of this Agreement is completely unambiguous because: “The State recognises the vocation of New Caledonia to benefit from a complete emancipation at the end of this period.” This Agreement will then remain at its last development stage without the possibility of going back in the event that the consultations do not lead to the new political organisation suggested. This irreversibility being a constitutional guarantee.

However, based on the decisions concerning the third referendum specifically, and the statements made by French government officials, the Kanak people observe that once again, the French State never follows through with its promises, and that in the last moment, it systematically aligns its interest as a “great power” to the French population it has settled in New Caledonia.

It was the case in 1963, when the French government unilaterally decided to cancel the framework law which had granted a wide autonomy status to New Caledonia, thus reflecting General De Gaulle’s desire to rely on New Caledonia and French Polynesia for France’s ambitions as a great world power. It also reflected the wishes of the [New] Caledonian colonial Right. This rupture unilaterally decided by Paris, created the conditions for the birth of Kanak nationalism from the 1970s, followed by its radicalisation in 1984-1988.

Today, almost forty years after 1984, it would seem that we are witnessing the same scenario, especially since the use of the concept of Indo-Pacific, with a renewed alliance between the President of the Republic and the Caledonian loyalists. Clearly, since 2021 and the Minister [Sébastien] Lecornu, the organisation of the third referendum has been the scene of the tipping of the State’s position towards the “No to independence” camp, undermining the very principles of the Matignon and Nouméa Agreements, the impartial State at the service of all, which resulted in a deadly loss of trust.

Since the possession of the islands by France, everything is done or organised based on French, European or Western norms, usages, traditions, or social structures, with an almost blind application of them in the context of a traditional society that is fundamentally different. Thus, basic organisations, structures, concepts, or processes, which are not that of Oceanian societies, continue to be imposed, without question as to the degree of constraint or acceptation that it implies.

However, this society, like any Oceanian society, carries deep values, drawing on the spiritual world, nourished by the sacred and inhabited by a way of thinking in harmony with nature and the cosmos as it has been valued, anchored mythological corpus on par with the great Mediterranean civilizations. We have not invented all this, it has been made explicit and rehabilitated by academia and anthropological research.

For a long time, the representatives of the Kanak people, whether it be the great chiefs, political leaders, or religious leaders have asked the question “but why does France, the governing power, not hear us?” It remains deaf to our points, to what the Kanak people wants, because it is its right to recover its lost sovereignty. But France does not think so and does not respect the recommendations made by the United Nations. It does exactly the opposite or interprets what is presented to it within the framework of the defence of superior national interests.

Could France, for once, carry a process of decolonisation through? This unfinished process of decolonisation carried on into the third referendum, which the FLNKS considers a “stolen” referendum. Has France forgotten the history of the colonisation of this people
and of its millennial civilisation?

The Melanesian civilisation is not an invention of the mind, it was demonstrated, scientifically confirmed by the community of researchers in the field of anthropology. Indeed, within the context of anthropology and approaching “deep nthought”, academic research led on the path of understanding the spirit of man and his relationship with the material and spiritual world around him. The aforementioned work provides for the first time an exploration and in-depth reading of the mythical thought of the Kanak people; thus, this research establishes the sacralising vision of ancient Kanak myths and an integral landscape of life in the Kanak world, the visible and the invisible; rehabilitating the power of myth in the 21st century and by attributing it an academic dignity, it valorises the cultural capital of people.

This work has been welcomed as a true exploration, both novel and original, it underlines the height and strength of Kanak deep thought and highlights fundamental themes such as cosmological knowledge, the power of symbols and archetypes, etc. This observation encourages the total recognition of the qualitative aspect of this people. However, the current evolution is not going in this direction and has never acknowledged these immaterial and intellectual resources. Therefore, its formalisation and institutionalisation is suggested, since the State cannot ignore the fundamental elements of Kanak society which can infer the proclamation of a prior sovereignty.

One cannot deny that the French presence in New Caledonia, the successive leadership and the institutional changes have never integrated in writing or in speech the “pre-eminence, the full and legitimate connection to their land (existential and ontological link, startling for the Cartesian mind, Kanak belong to their land, land does not belong to them) and the sacred and inalienable character of the presence and existence of the Kanak people, as well as the sovereignty they possess: the later comes from the people and is complementary to the immaterial heritage…”

On this note, customary senators expressed their deep gratitude to an academic researcher in structural anthropology, whose novel work was welcomed as having valued and sacralised the fundamentals which structure Kanak civilisation. This original contribution fills a gap and demonstrates that “others” can understand, respect, and give the Kanak people their essential and existential values back. Above all, this contribution disrupts the one directional relation, which prevents the establishment of a real exchange, and which leads to forceful imposition, regardless of the qualities and values of the other. We seriously believe that France can take a step that it has never taken before to show that it is a great nation capable, like the Kanak who welcomes others, of recognising “a timeless and original sovereignty”, an essential condition for sharing in acceptance and understanding.

Indeed, it constitutes a new approach because a part of Kanak civilisation was destroyed in its anthropological foundations and its sociocultural organisation by the violence of French possession and the imposition of a “pax romana” without any counterpart. The impacts are known: the annihilation of the history which precedes September 24, 1853, the loss of identity in relation to languages, land, culture, beliefs, etc. Kanak people’s ancestral land was considered “terra nullius”. This “terra nullius” status was assigned to make it “lawful” for better armed countries which pretended to be “more civilised” to seize, colonise and exploit territories and resources. That is in spite of the fact that, in our traditions, not one centimeter of land or maritime territory escaped the ontic link of belonging between the human and their land.

But in the meantime, the impacts on the being and doing of Kanak people have been of a great violence and these harms are still present in 21st century Kanak society. Some of these impacts have been acknowledged notably in the preamble of the Nouméa Agreement, but no solution followed, through a holistic approach which could have defined some “just” measures to implement so that the Kanak people could recover its dignity.

It is time for France to react because in New Caledonia, a sly colonialism or neocolonialism is currently at play, attempting to erase and negate the natural sovereignty of the Kanak people on its territory, condemning it to eternally look for a lost paradise. We do not want to die assimilated like a sugar cube in water and we will resist to survive. Fortunately, some moral voices make themselves heard to denounce this unjust system, as is the case with the Vatican.

In its “colonial” history, the Vatican shared discovered lands with different European Christian countries, among which Portugal, Spain, France, etc. It ended up ubi et orbi declaring the abandonment of the doctrine of discovery, which operated from the 16th century and provided a framework to lay possessive claims, to appropriate and to colonise, due to the destruction, damage, and other ills of colonisers. More recently, Pope Francis declared in a message addressed to the participants of the “colonisation and neocolonialism: a social justice and common good perspective” forum, which took place on March 30th and 31st, 2023 that neocolonialism is sly, that it is a crime, and that there isn’t any possibility of peace in a world that rejects some people in order to oppress them.

We even remember the unforgettable sentence marked by the “presidential” seal, of candidate Emmanuel Macron in Algeria, stating that colonisation is a crime against humanity. This gives more weight to the papal message. Restorative action is thus unavoidable and must lead to a deep reflection: Which people has suffered? To whom do we owe reparation and apology before imposing and controlling?

We do not ask for pity, nor do we beg or repent, a confessional notion. We only ask for justice through a holistic and recognised approach, that of transitional justice with its four pillars, to reinvigorate a damaged people, which drags generation after generation, the negative impacts on its being and its doing, as Solgenystine and other experts remind us on the topic of colonialism.

But we are also aware of the “cultural” difficulty for the great colonising countries to go in the direction of colonised countries. As evidence, in the work of French anthropologist François Pouillon on this issue:

Nations states hardly appreciate Native peoples, even more so when the latter
manifest some inclination toward autonomy, or worse, independence. At stake is the
power of sovereign states over the territories they govern and from which they most
often exploit the Native populations which are marginal in their eyes. If they resist,
they break the law and expose themselves to economic, juridical or even military
sanctions.

Contemporary centralised states are more so convinced of their efficacy and legitimacy as they promote ideologies and values which they are always proud of: the development of their technical and medical knowledge, the “universality” of their confessional or secular beliefs, their “influence” in the world and, at last, their advanced position in the evolution of humankind, all of this supported, more prosaically, by a solid armament.

Native peoples, in their emphasis on their own territories, memories, institutions and knowledges, would only slow them down on their path to perfection.

This tyrannical self-satisfaction feeds on the conviction, as François Pouillon underlines, that “if others, abroad, sometimes have an enviable quality of life, in their closeness to nature and the spiritual warmth of their group (which, however, does not protect them from bloody dictatorships, ethnic cleanings, natural disasters and great modern pandemics), they are, we believe, in a pitiful political state and remain, after all, ‘backward’.” (Anthropologie des petites choses, Le Bord de l’eau, 2015)

Colonial attitudes feed off this “naïve evolutionism” from which contempt originates. From the lack of consideration to enslaved people in the Code Noir (royal decree passed in 1685 aiming to define the conditions of slavery and its practices in the French colonies) to the dehumanisation of Jewish and Tzigane [Roma] people in extermination camps, through the stigmatisation of “primitive” people and other “indigènes” of the colonies, the same deadly chant is sung: May impure blood water the fields of the civilization we embody.

These references are not historical since, today, Amazonia has been transformed into a gigantic inferno where the last Indians die, while Uighurs, Rohingya, Roma, Aboriginal people, African Americans, Native Americans and many others suffer a thousand deaths under the rule of nation-states convinced of being at the top of social and human progress.

Will Kanaks of New Caledonia also pay the price of the narcissism of the powerful? And thus, of France?

“Rebalancing” policies all over the Pacific, Native populations have already historically undergone a spectacular demographic decline (due to epidemics, massacres, poisonings), land spoliation from non-Indigenous people, both rural and urban, exclusion from the benefits of new economic initiatives (mining, extensive breeding, exportation) and the moral attacks of Western monotheisms.

The paradox of New Caledonia is that France has recognised parts of its faults by committing, from 1988, to important “rebalancing” policies aimed primarily at Kanaks. Michel Rocard, when he was Prime Minister from 1988 to 1991, then Lionel Jospin, from 1997 to 2002, also supported the industrial ambitions of pro-independence leaders by enabling them to acquire a mine and to successfully extract, process and export nickel. At the same time, strong support for the expression of Kanak identity has marked the last thirty years with the creation of the Tjibaou Cultural Centre in May 1998, the revival of the Customary Senate [Kanak advisory assembly] and taking into account the Indigenous point of view in the courts.

These significant developments, which have never been questioned by the successive governments of the French Republic, have noticeably appeased the minds and improved the daily life of all Caledonians in general, and Kanaks in particular.

They were combined with unprecedented institutional measures: the scheduling of three referenda for self-determination, the creation of a special electoral roll used for polls open solely to Caledonians who had settled before 1994 and the urge to all the communities living in the archipelago to elaborate a “common destiny”. Alternative forms of sovereignity.

This momentum did not lead to New Caledonia’s access to full sovereignty in the first referendum on November 4, 2018, but it signaled a surprise surge in votes in favour of independence (43.3 percent), a cause which Caledonian of European, Asian or
Oceanian descent have evidently joined. This trend was confirmed on October 4,
2020, with 47 percent of the population expressing their wish for New Caledonia to become
independent. If this progression is significant, these results won’t change the
outcome. The issue is not purely electoral or numerical.

It refers to much deeper forces. Oceanians, despite being victims of a denial of existence, have created social organisations, practices and knowledge related to their doing and being that are specific to them. Through relations to land, legitimacies to power and counter power, strategies of political and matrimonial alliances, whether near or far, connections to the past, and visual and narrative creations, they have developed an alternative form of sovereignty to the monolithic and absolute one that is glorified by nation-states. The challenge of French and British colonisation has matured this nuance and complex political thought, which is a source of resistance and projects for the future. These gains are ineradicable and will not be phased by the ephemeral results of a referendum.

In this context, how can we forge a genuine dialogue?

It seems to us that it is high time for the governing authority to look at the “other” in order to have a mutual understanding, the basis of trust to create, promote, and walk together with the ability and willingness to share a “modus operandi” through the discussions and negotiations to come on the topic of other forms of governance.

Consensus proves to be a fundamental element in the important choices that we had to make for the evolution of New Caledonia in light of the challenges of 21st century.

You have no other choice than to integrate this practice specific to the Pacific or miss out on a successful statutory development project for New Caledonia.

Madam Prime Minister, your government would gain from being in a “win-win” approach, because everyone can assess what New Caledonia represents in this part of the world. We are ready to discuss it.

Building new relationships of trust between our two countries, committing to stability for the populations which have chosen to participate to New Caledonia’s prosperity, and lastly, mastering the stakes, notably environmental, that we will have to face are all challenges that we are willing to undertake. Therefore, the unique trajectory assumed by the FLNKS for the accession to full sovereignty and independence offers the outline that we wished to present to you.

The past 30 years of social stability have provided a conductive environment for the unprecedented development of our country. The irreversible process of decolonisation put in place by the Nouméa Agreement has placed New Caledonia in front of its growing responsibilities, leading us to be standing at the doors of the “concert of nations”.

Considering our emancipation process, the FLNKS believes that we are ready to assume the attributes of our sovereignty. Through a co-construction approach, we propose that the adoption of a political treaty enabling to seal a political basis for this final phase of statutory evolution be studied.

This political agreement will guarantee:

● Reaching an independence bilaterally negotiated with the governing power;
● The continuation of the irreversible process of decolonisation of New Caledonia;
● Obtaining an ultimate process that implements a programme of accession to
full sovereignty and independence; and
● Constitutionalising the political agreement and the accession to independence status, which includes the transition phase, the sovereignty act and the proclamation of the birth of a new state.

Since 1986, New Caledonia has been on the UN list of non-self governing territories. This acknowledgement on the international stage guarantees us rights without which our deepest aspirations would not have been heard. And as long as our ultimate conviction will not be respected, we will continue to make our struggle known.

Madam Prime Minister, this year will mark the 25th year since the Nouméa Agreement. It is our duty to cultivate this consensual state of mind, which has guided all the stakeholders to this juridical innovation that recognised “the shadows of colonisation”.

Madam Prime Minister, we will have to stand by the choices we make for our future generations. As far as we are concerned, it is our duty never to surrender our right to independence and we are convinced that the French State can succeed in the statutory evolution of New Caledonia, within the context of the UN’s Fourth International Decade for the Eradication of Colonialism.

To conclude, Madam Prime Minister, this long introduction allows us to place in front of you a historical and political trajectory for the country to access full sovereignty and independence is a logical destiny. We would like to know the ambitions of the central government.

Thank you for your attention.

Roch Wamytan
Head of Delegation

This statement has been lightly edited for publication style.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

New Caledonia’s pro-independence Union Calédonian has proposed September 24 this year as the date by which an accord be reached with France to complete decolonisation.

The party, which wants independence for the territory by 2025, has chosen the date because it will mark the 170th anniversary of New Caledonia becoming a French colony on 24 September 1853.

The call was made by the party’s president Daniel Goa after reports from Paris that the French interior minister Gerald Darmanin would return to New Caledonia in early March to advance work on a new statute for the territory.

• READ MORE: Other future of Kanaky New Caledonia reports

In three referendums, New Caledonia rejected full sovereignty, but the pro-independence Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front (FLNKS), which includes the Caledonian Union, refuses to recognise the third vote, held in December 2021, as the legitimate outcome of the decolonisation process.

As the three votes concluded the Noumea Accord without New Caledonia becoming independent, the stakeholders concerned must be convened to discuss the situation.

The FLNKS is scheduled to hold its congress at the end of February to prepare its position for the bilateral talks scheduled with Darmanin.

On UN decolonisation list
New Caledonia has been on the UN decolonisation list since 1986, based on the indigenous Kanak people’s internationally recognised right to self-determination.

Goa said negotiations are only worthwhile if they deal with the emancipation of the country.

He said his side needs to know how the French state will withdraw and how it will compensate New Caledonia for 170 years of the “looting of its resources”.

The anti-independence camp says a revised statute should be in place for the 2024 provincial elections.

The pro-French parties have said that by then the restricted electoral roll must be opened to all French citizens.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

The President of New Caledonia’s Congress Roch Wamytan is set to be re-elected for another one-year term after the party holding the balance of power said it would again vote for him next week.

The ethnic Wallisian and Futunan party, Pacific Awakening, has confirmed its decision to vote for Wamytan of the pro-independence Caledonian Union, saying there was a need for stability to advance reforms.

The party has three of the 54 seats, with the anti-independence camp holding 25 and the pro-independence parties 26.

• READ MORE: Other New Caledonia politics reports

It said that 30 years of political bipolarity over the question of independence from France has led to growing problems in everyday life, be it in terms of employment or cost of living.

Earlier this week, the anti-independence parties named the MPC (Caledonian People’s Movement) leader Gil Brial as their candidate for Tuesday’s election of a Congress president.

When politicians of the newly formed Pacific Awakening party were first elected in 2019, they vowed to foster a balance of power by supporting an anti-independence candidate to lead the government and a pro-independence candidate to be in charge of the Congress.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

New Caledonia’s pro-independence FLNKS (Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front) has signed a memorandum of understanding with the United Liberation Movement for West Papua (ULMWP), which wants independence from Indonesia.

The Kanak-Papuan deal was signed by Roch Wamytan, President of New Caledonia’s Congress, and the visiting ULMWP leader Benny Wenda.

Wamytan told La Premiere television in Noumea that both territories were involved in a process of decolonisation and emancipation — one with France, the other with Indonesia.

• READ MORE: Other reports on Kanak decolonisation
• Other reports on West Papua

“We have signed this accord because each of us are confronted by a process of decolonisation and emancipation. The people of Papua with Indonesia and us with the French state,” he said.

“This process of decolonisation has not ended for us, it has been ruptured over time, to say the least.”

The memorandum aims to support each other internationally and to develop a list of common goals.

Indonesia took over the western half of New Guinea island after a controversial 1969 UN-backed referendum that is rejected as a sham by Papuans, with West Papuan activists now seeking inscription on the UN decolonisation list.

New Caledonia has been on the UN decolonisation list since 1986, and between 2018 and 2021 has held three referendums on independence from France.

Wenda visited Vanuatu on the first leg of his Pacific trip from his exiled base in London.

He was a guest of the Vanuatu West Papua Independence Committee.

FLNKS will boycott Paris talks
New Caledonia’s pro-independence FLNKS movement said it would not attend talks in September of the signatories to the 1998 Noumea Accord in Paris.

A special meeting of the movement’s leadership decided at the weekend that legitimate talks would now have to be bilateral ones, involving the FLNKS and France as the colonising state.

Newly-elected FLNKS Congress member Laura Humunie said bilateral talks were the only formal way to get their message to the French state.

“We repeat, that to obtain bilateral talks we will not go to Paris because for us this is the legitimate way of talking to the French colonial state,” she said.

“Our loyalist partners who have signed the ‘no’ referendum, means that they align with the French state’s ideals.”

Last December, more than 96 percent voted against independence from France in a referendum boycotted by the pro-independence parties, which refuse to recognise the result as the legitimate outcome of the decolonisation process.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

New Caledonia’s pro-independence Palika party has joined the Caledonian Union in rejecting talks in Paris announced by the French Interior Ministry.

The ministry called a meeting of the signatories to the 1998 Noumea Accord for September as France plans to draw up a new statute for New Caledonia after last December’s boycotted referendum saw a majority of voters opt to remain French.

Palika spokesperson Charles Washetine said the French state had abandoned any notion of “impartiality” and wants to impose such talks amid pressure from the political right.

• READ MORE: Other Kanak independence reports

The head of the Caledonian Union, Daniel Goa, said his side would not go to Paris, describing the proposed talks as a sham and adding that if any talks were to go ahead, they would have to be held in New Caledonia and about ways to give the territory its sovereignty.

He also said any talks would be bilateral ones between his side and Paris, meaning that they would not involve New Caledonia’s anti-independence parties.

Noumea trip cancelled
The Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin had earlier announced a visit to Noumea before the end of next week, but the trip has reportedly been cancelled.

His ministry said he would visit New Caledonia after the Paris talks planned for September.

The anti-independence camp welcomed Darmanin’s proposed talks to conclude the process set out in the Noumea Accord.

New Caledonia has been on the UN Decolonisation List since 1986 and despite the referendum outcome, the Kanaks’ right to self-determination remains an inalienable international right.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

The president of New Caledonia’s Southern Province Sonia Backès has been given a post in France’s reshuffled and enlarged 42-member government.

The prime minister Elisabeth Borne appointed her as the secretary of citizenship within the interior ministry, which has integrated the overseas ministry.

The reshuffle means that the position of overseas minister has been abolished and replaced with a minister delegate, a post given to Jean-Francois Carenco.

• READ MORE: New Caledonia politics

The previous minister, Yael Braun-Pivet, resigned last month after just one month in office to successfully run for the presidency of the French National Assembly.

Backès said that while joining the French Interior Ministry she would retain her position as president of the Southern Province.

She is the first politician from New Caledonia to become part of the government of France.

This year, she spearheaded a merger of four anti-independence parties in New Caledonia to support the election campaign for President Emmanuel Macron’s Renaissance party in last month’s election of a new French National Assembly.

Both of New Caledonia’s seats in Paris were won by her coalition’s candidates.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

New Caledonia’s first round of the French National Assembly election has seen surprise advances of the pro-independence Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front (FLNKS) whose two candidates both made it to next Sunday’s run-off round.

Wali Wahetra came second in the constituency made up of the anti-independence stronghold Noumea plus the mainly Kanak Loyalty Islands and the Isle of Pines.

Her success marks the first time in 15 years that an FLNKS candidate has qualified for the second round there.

• READ MORE: Macron’s centrists neck-and-neck with Socialists-Green bloc in French elections
• Other New Caledonian election reports

“The goal was attained for the first round”, she said and thanked “those who think our struggle is legitimate and noble”.

Sunday’s voting was the first since the referendum on independence from France in December when the FLNKS boycotted the event, which then saw 96 percent vote against independence.

The election was open to all French citizens in New Caledonia, in contrast to the referendum, for which the roll was restricted to indigenous people and long-term residents.

Turnout was 33 percent, which was a one-percent drop over the previous National Assembly election in 2017.

Lift in independence vote
However, there was a slight lift in areas traditionally voting for independence because last time a key FLNKS party, the Caledonian Union, had called for abstaining.

With the joint FLNKS call to go out and vote, Wahetra secured 22 percent of the vote while the winner in the constituency Philippe Dunoyer got 41 percent.

Seeking re-election for another five-year term, Dunoyer stood for a newly formed Ensemble, which is a four-party coalition linked for the purpose of this election to French President Emmanuel Macron.

In the other constituency, encompassing the main island minus Noumea, the anti-independence candidate Nicolas Metzdorf won 34 percent of the vote, a narrow advantage over the FLNKS candidate Gerard Reignier with 33 percent.

Reignier said: “We gave us a goal of making it to the second round and we made it to the second round”.

Seventeen candidates contested Sunday’s election, including a former president Thierry Santa of the Rassemblement, which had historically been the key anti-independence party.

He won, however, just 22 percent, clearly distanced by Metzdorf and Reignier.

The Rassemblement’s other candidate, Virginie Ruffenach, also came third in her southern constituency, winning 14 percent of the vote.

Reacting to her defeat, Ruffenach urged her supporters to back Dunoyer in the run-off to ensure the anti-independence parties keep being represented in Paris.

Single candidate tactic
The success of the FLNKS has in part been explained by its member parties agreeing to run a single candidate in each of the two constituencies.

After shunning the referendum in December, it campaigned for the two seats in the hope of getting a representative elected to the French Assembly to have its quest for sovereignty heard.

The result also confirmed the political divide entrenched for years and largely along geographical and ethnic lines.

The polarisation is such that Reignier won more than 90 percent of votes in the northern electorates known for their pro-independence stance.

The anti-independence camp has been riven for years by varying rivalries but for the National Assembly election, four parties formed the Ensemble group, which Metzdorf considered to be a success.

Metzdorf, who is mayor of La Foa and the leader of Generations NC, joined as did Dunoyer of Caledonia Together Party, which had won both seats in 2017.

In the 2018 provincial election, Caledonia Together was weakened and the party leader, Philippe Gomes, who had held one of the two Paris seats for a decade, did not seek re-election this year.

First round victories hailed
Sonia Backes, who is the president of the Southern Province and the anti-independence politician representing the French president in New Caledonia, hailed the first-round victories of the Ensemble candidates.

She welcomed the support immediately expressed by the defeated Rassemblement politicians, saying there must be a united “loyalist” camp.

Backes added that perhaps the new French overseas minister might visit next week while the law commission of the French Senate will conduct a fact-finding mission in preparation of a new statute for New Caledonia.

Many candidates expressed concern about the low turnout, saying some thought has to be given to finding ways of engaging the public.

With campaigning resuming for next Sunday’s run-off, the two camps are aware that a large pool of voters could be mobilised on both sides.

The anti-independence side is however poised to bolster the support for its two candidates as the losing contenders in its ranks can add their backing for Dunoyer and Metzdorf.

This leaves scant hope for the FLNKS to win a seat in Paris — one of 577 on offer.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

The pro-independence coalition parties of Kanaky New Caledonia have selected their candidates for the French Legislative elections next month.

Wali Wahetra from the Palika Party is standing in one electoral district, and Gerard Reignier from Union Caledonienne is standing in the other.

Speaking with La Premiere, Wahetra explained what the New Caledonian pro-independence coalition will demand from the French National Assembly.

• READ MORE: Other French election reports

“The ability for New Caledonia to have full sovereignty. The maintenance of New Caledonia on the list of decolonised territories, and a status among the republic of France,” she said.

New Caledonia elects two representatives for the Assembly.

The anti-independence parties aligned to President Emmanuel Macron have selected their candidates — Philippe Dunoyer of the Caledonia Together Party and Nicolas Metzdorf, the leader of the Generations NC party.

Another anti-independence group, Rassemblement nominated its candidates last month — Thierry Santa and Virginie Ruffenach.

The two seats had been held by Dunoyer and Philippe Gomes, a former New Caledonian president who decided against standing for another term.

Dunoyer said they support French President Emmanuel Macron and wanted to be a local variant of his party.

Since 1986 no deputy has represented a pro-independence party at the French National Assembly.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

Several pro-independence parties in New Caledonia are urging supporters to boycott the second round of the French presidential elections this Sunday.

The election pits far-right National Rally (Rassemblement National) candidate Marine Le Pen against the incumbent President Emmanuel Macron.

Before the first round the pro-independence parties advised supporters to vote for a left-oriented candidate.

• READ MORE: Caledonian Union vows to end French ‘neo-colonial putsch’ in Pacific
• French presidential debate – who was the most convincing?
• More French presidential election reports

The best of those were Jean-Luc Melenchon, who narrowly failed to make the second round.

The La France Insoumise (LFI – France Unbowed) leader topped the charts in a majority of overseas territories, scoring particularly high in the Caribbean, in the first round of the presidential election.

President Macron of the centrist LREM party only came first in the Pacific territories.

Daniel Goa, president of the Union Calédonian — largest of the pro-indendence parties — said the poll was an election only for people living in France.

In a short release signed on Wednesday, numerous parties urged a boycott of both Le Pen and Macron.

A member of the committee supporting Melenchon said in a release “The advice not to vote for the right hand side of politics will be respected without hesitation.

“However, voting Emmanuel Macron signifies agreeing with a dumb referendum that happened on December 12 which the president did not stop in defiance of the pleas of the Kanak people.”

During the first round of elections on April 10, Macron was massively ahead of Le Pen in New Caledonia with 40.51 percent of votes.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

New Caledonia’s largest pro-independence party says it will not give up on the gains made in terms of decolonisation from France under the 1998 Noumea Accord.

Party president Daniel Goa made the statement in an address at the party congress in the north of the main island Grande Terre at the weekend, outlining its key points ahead of negotiations with Paris about the territory’s institutional future.

Last December, more than 96 percent voted against independence from France in the third and last referendum provided under the Noumea Accord.

• READ MORE: Other New Caledonia politics reports
• Backgrounder on Kanaky New Caledonia

However, the plebiscite was boycotted by the pro-independence side after it had unsuccessfully asked Paris to postpone the vote because of the impact of the covid-19 pandemic on mainly the indigenous Kanak population.

The pro-independence parties said they would not recognise the result, describing it as illegitimate and one not reflecting the will of the people to be decolonised.

Anti-independence parties as well as the French government welcomed the result, with President Emmanuel Macron saying France was “more beautiful” because New Caledonia decided to remain part of it.

Right after the vote, the French Overseas Minister Sebastien Lecornu said Paris planned to hold another referendum in June next year about a new statute for a New Caledonia within France.

‘Only emancipation’
However, Goa reiterated at the weekend the pro-independence camp’s stance was that it would not join discussions about re-integrating New Caledonia into France.

He told delegates that “the Caledonian Union had nothing to negotiate except to listen and discuss the process of emancipation that will irreversibly lead to sovereignty”.

Pro-independence parties, united under the umbrella of the Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front (FLNKS), said after the December referendum that they would have no negotiations with France until after this year’s presidential election.

Last month, at the congress of another pro-independence party, Palika, its spokesperson Charles Washetine suggested holding another independence referendum by 2024 to complete the decolonisation process, but this time with the participation of the Kanak people.

Washetine added that the vote should be run by the United Nations, and not by France any longer.

Goa accused France of having failed to be neutral at the last referendum, which was meant to conclude the Noumea Accord process with the Kanak people’s emancipation.

However, he said it turned out that France tried to hide behind a “neo-colonial putsch”.

Gradual transfer of power
Under the Noumea Accord, there has been a gradual transfer of power, which is enshrined in the French constitution and which Goa insisted was an irreversible achievement.

He stressed that there could be no consideration to open the electoral rolls which restrict voting rights to indigenous people and long-term residents in provincial elections and in referendums.

About 41,000 French residents are excluded from such voting.

Goa said freezing the electoral body with the Noumea Accord put an end to the French settlement policy, which French Prime Minister Pierre Messmer still encouraged in 1972.

He said the signatories of the accord wanted to lay the foundation for a citizenship of New Caledonia, allowing the indigenous people to be joined by long term settlers to forge their common destiny.

Goa said that since the December referendum, the French state intended to bring these 41,000 French people back into the electoral body, which he said would destabilise the still very fragile political balances.

He likened attempts to change the rolls to “re-colonisation”.

For sake of ‘handful of French’
He wondered why France would question the achievement of the Noumea Accord for the sake of “a handful of French people” who left their country to settle in New Caledonia.

Goa said France was ready to sacrifice a political process and its word given in front of the international community for what he described as a “handful of adventurers”.

Anti-independence parties, however, expressed support for the push to have the restrictions abolished.

A local interest group, One Heart One Vote, said it would lobby the French Supreme Court, the European Human Rights Court and the United Nations to quash the existing provisions, describing them as discriminatory.

With the first round of the French presidential election due on April 12, the Republicans’ candidate Valerie Pecresse said the eligibility question must be readdressed as to give a full place to those who had been building New Caledonia for years while having no right to vote.

In his address, Goa also alluded to the war in Ukraine and what he called France’s “omnipresent imperialism” in part because of its continued occupation of Mayotte in the Indian Ocean.

The Comoros partitioned
The Comoros, which is between Mozambique and Madagascar, was partitioned after independence in 1975 because France refused to let Mayotte go as its residents had voted to stay with France.

The United Nations asked France to return Mayotte, but Paris integrated the island to become a French department in 2011 and part of the Eurozone three years later.

France will follow the presidential elections this month with National Assembly elections in June.

Proper discussions on how the December referendum outcome will be implemented will have to wait.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

Two parties of New Caledonia’s pro-independence FLNKS (Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front) movement have restated their intention to attain the territory’s decolonisation from France after last December’s referendum – mostly boycotted by the indigenous Kanak population — in which a majority of voters opted to stay with France.

The two parties, Palika and the Caledonian Union, held their first key meetings since the plebiscite over the weekend after the covid-19 outbreak forced the cancellation of their planned gatherings in January.

They restated that they did not recognise the referendum result, which showed 96.5 percent voted against independence.

• READ MORE: Other Kanaky New Caledonia independence reports

Pro-independence parties boycotted the vote after France refused to defer the third and final referendum under the Noumea Accord, rejecting concerns about the impact of the pandemic on the indigenous Kanak population.

Consequently, turnout plummeted to below 44 percent, in contrast to the second referendum in 2020 when turnout was more than 85 percent.

The Kanak said already before the last vote that the result would be invalid because it excluded the voice of the colonised people.

Rejecting the outcome of the plebiscite, the pro-independence parties mounted a court challenge in France, and plan to campaign internationally for its annulment.

New independence referendum by 2024
At the weekend Palika Congress, spokesperson Charles Washetine suggested holding another independence referendum by 2024 to complete the decolonisation process — this time with the participation of the Kanak people.

Washetine added that it should be run by the United Nations.

In December, the pro-independence side also said it would not enter any negotiations with Paris until after the French presidential election in April.

Political parties have been asked to submit suggestions of what the new statute of a New Caledonia with France should look like.

The plan is to include civil society in its preparation and have a document ready by June next year for New Caledonians to vote on.

The pro-independence side has so far rejected any co-operation in any such project, insisting that its talks with Paris will only be about ways of winning independence.

The vote in December ended the 1998 Noumea Accord, but its provisions leave the current institutions in place until a post-accord arrangement has been adopted.

Restrictions in the electoral roll to indigenous people and long-term residents remain, but the anti-independence side would like the voter eligibility widened to include the about 40,000 French citizens currently excluded from referendums and provincial elections.

The Caledonian Union leader, Daniel Goa, told the weekend party meeting that changing the roll would be a serious political mistake.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.