New Caledonia is a wound that touches something intimate about France: the remains of the colonial past and its ambitions for grandeurand global power. 17,000 kilometers from Paris, a minimum of 24 hours by plane and nine time zones, it is the France of the antipodes. An anachronism? Or an experiment in shared sovereignty in the 21st century? Exotic for the French of the metropolis and its leaders, this archipelago northeast of Australia and colonized in 1853 is currently experiencing its most serious hours since the violence of the 1980s, a situation that is described as a quasi-civil war.
In the three provinces of le caillou —the stone, as it is known— riots broke out two weeks ago that have so far left seven dead, dozens of shops and businesses looted, neighborhoods blocked, news of armed native youth and groups of armed Europeans as well, and a deployment of some 3,000 police, gendarmes and soldiers. And this, in a context of growing inequalities and the collapse of the local nickel industry.
The crisis, far from being resolved despite the visit of President Emmanuel Macron this week, widens the distance between the community of indigenous and pro-independence origin (the Kanaks) and that of European origin and loyalist,in favor of continuing to be part of the French Republic (the Caldoches). In a territory with abundant weapons in circulation and entrenched resentments, the fear of civil war is resurrected. This is a story in which the ghosts of colonialism mix with the arrogance of power exercised from a distance, and in the setting of the Pacific Ocean, a hot area of the planet where France wants to be present.
New Caledonia “is a revelation that the colonial question, which is at the heart of the history of the French Republic, remains an unhealed wound,” writes journalist Patrick Roger, a specialist in Le Mondein the overseas territories, in the recently published book Nouvelle-Calédonie. The tragedy (New Caledonia, the tragedy, not available in Spanish). There is no territory in the Republic with greater autonomy and, at the same time, in no other territory is the independence movement so strong. “For France,” writes Roger, “this is a question of sovereignty, in a region in which areas of conflict and tension are multiplying and which is at the heart of the struggles for influence between the United States and China.”
The violence broke out on May 13, coinciding with the adoption, in the French National Assembly and Senate, of a constitutional reform that will expand the electoral roll of New Caledonia and thus dilute the weight of the Kanaks. Today the Kanaks represent 41% of the population and the Caldoches, 24%.
The census for the provincial elections – but not for the presidential, legislative and European elections throughout France – was set in 1998, which excludes one in five voters who arrived after that date. The aim was to limit Caledonian citizenship to those with ancestral roots, to the descendants of European settlers or exiles, and to people with a few years of residence. And to dispel the fear that the arrival of Europeans would leave the Kanaks in a minority. With the reform, which before the riots had to be definitively adopted before the end of June, those who had been in the archipelago for more than ten years would have the right to vote in provincial elections.
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The census has been the core of the conflict since at least the 1980s. Anthropologist Benoît Trépied, a specialist in New Caledonia, speaks of a “confrontation between two political legitimacies.” “On the one hand,” he explains, “that of the Kanako people as a colonized people, and whose right to self-determination is recognized by international law and that of the United Nations. On the other hand, the logic of French democracy, one man equals one vote, but which, applied to a situation of population colonization, does nothing but reinforce colonial rule.”
Before the reform was approved, the atmosphere was already tense. We must go back to the 2021 referendum, the third of those provided for by the 1998 agreements. The first, in 2018, was won by the Noto independence with 56.7% of votes. The second, in 2020, the distance was reduced: 53.3% for the No. Meanwhile the pandemic arrived. The independentists asked Paris to postpone the third consultation, without success, and then called for a boycott. He No was imposed, due to the massive abstention of the Kanaks, with 96% of the votes.
“This left a very bitter taste,” says Manuel Valls, one of the French politicians who has been most concerned with New Caledonia, first as an advisor to socialist prime ministers, then as prime minister, and also as a deputy. Valls says that, after the referendum, an attempt was made to seek a “global agreement” that included, in addition to the modification of the census, issues such as the distribution of power, the future status of the relationship with France and New Caledonian citizenship. “For reasons I don’t understand, they wanted to rush everything,” says the former prime minister. And that is how he decided to adopt only part of this agreement—the new census—and, furthermore, without the agreement of the independence supporters.
“I and [el ex primer ministro de Macron] Édouard Philippe and the specialists who had worked with [los primeros ministros socialistas] Michel Rocard and Lionel Jospin, we said: ‘Be careful, this could be a terrible explosion.’” They were not heard. Valls recalls that “all institutional agreements, all of them, since 1988, are by consensus with the Kanaks and the loyalists, and here, for the first time, a reform, which is also constitutional, is imposed by force, by the central government, without the agreement of the independentists. “This is a huge mistake,” he adds, “because it tells the Kanaks that the state is no longer neutral.”
Macron was to be a referee; Now he was part of it, or so it was seen. The anthropologist Trépied believes that it was after the second referendum when, seeing that the distance was reducing and that one day the independence movement could triumph, that the State abandoned neutrality. “I am personally convinced that it is because of their new Indo-Pacific diplomatic strategy,” he says. “He has been convinced that this strategy can only be applied if New Caledonia remains French.”
“Macron neither saw nor heard reality,” laments another veteran of the neo-Caledonian issue in Paris, former socialist deputy René Dosière. “The trip has at least allowed him to confirm that the situation was very difficult, very complex. “It’s good that he has found his sight and hearing again.” At the end of the brief visit, on Thursday, Macron suggested putting the reform on hold on the condition that the blockades be lifted, and called for a dialogue on a “global agreement” that would be submitted to a referendum. There are those who see the offer as a rectification after months of unilateralism; others consider that nothing has changed. The independentistas demand the total withdrawal of the reform.
Dosière believes that the visit “will calm things down.” And then? “One party wants independence, the other does not, and to find a solution both must be associated,” she responds. “This is not said publicly, but I think that the future is a fully sovereign New Caledonia, that is, independent, but associated with France.”
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