New research has found that efforts to reduce employment inequalities for New Caledonia's indigenous Kanak population have stagnated.
Noumea Photo: AFP
It says that while inequality has been greatly reduced, the gap has not narrowed since 2009 and, in some cases, it has increased.
Since the Matignon Accords were signed in 1989, many projects have been implemented to try and increase the number of Kanaks in the territory's workforce.
The study, which was presented at the University of New Caledonia on Friday, says the programmes have been successful at enabling thousands of Kanaks to enter higher education or the workforce.
Despite this, however, the employment rate for Kanaks is still far behind that of other communities and the gap has not closed since 2009.
One of the authors, Catherine Ris, said Kanaks still face significant social disparities that holds the community back.
To highlight this, it was only last week that the first ever Kanak lawyer, Francky Dihace, was sworn in before the Court of Noumea.
