The FLNKS flag widely used in New Caledonia. Photo: RNZ Walter Zweifel
New Caledonia's rival pro- and anti-independence factions both say they are satisfied with the week of separate talks with French government ministers in Paris.
After the rejection of full sovereignty in three referendums and the expiry of the 1998 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.
The discussions will be continued in Noumea in June when the French interior minister Gerald Darmanin plans his next visit.
His ministry said in May he will 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.
After this week's talks in Paris, Victor Tutugoro of the pro-independence FLNKS movement told the AFP news agency all points raised by his side have been accepted for the negotiations in June.
The anti-independence parties expressed satisfaction that the FLNKS accepted the French invitation for this week's bilateral discussions after shunning a dialogue in France since the third and last independence referendum in 2021.
The pro-independence side largely abstained from the third vote because of the pandemic and refuses to recognise the result as the legitimate outcome of the decolonisation process.
The anti-independence parties want the June talks to be trilateral after the pro-independence parties insisted on negotiating only with France about a path to sovereignty.
The president of the Southern Province Sonia Backes said Darmanin's visit only makes sense if the pro-independence parties join the anti-independence parties for discussions.
On key points, the two sides remain far apart.
The pro-independence parties say the restricted rolls for provincial election, which define New Caledonian citizenship and are enshrined in the French constitution, must stay.
The anti-independence parties want France to open the rolls for next year's provincial elections to include people who settled since 1998.
They also want a statute preventing any future option for self-determination.
According to a New Caledonian member of the French National Assembly Nicholas Metzdorf, Darmanin said either time will do the job, or he will do the job.
