Photo: supplied FB
New Caledonia's pro-independence FLNKS movement has proclaimed its unity at its congress ahead of bilateral talks scheduled with the French interior minister Gerald Darmanin.
The congress was held in a Noumea anti-independence stronghold. A veteran Kanak leader said the location was chosen to show the French state that the Kanak people are still there.
Darmanin is due in Noumea this week to resume discussions on a new statute for New Caledonia after the rejection of full sovereignty in three consecutive referendums.
The last vote in 2021 was held during the pandemic, with the pro-independence side describing it as an affront and outcome it won't recognise.
A senior member of the Caledonian Union, Dominique Fochi, told local television there have been divergent proposals from the different parties making up the FLNKS.
But he said there is was much at stake that there was no room for dissonant voices.
One of the parties, the Caledonian Union, has said negotiations with France are only worthwhile if they deal with the emancipation of the country.
This weekend's 41st congress in Noumea attracted several international independence supporters, notably a pro-independence party in Spain's Basque Country and the French Guiana nationalist MP Jean-Victor Castor.
New Caledonia has been on the UN decolonisation list since 1986, based on the Kanak people's internationally recognised right to self-determination.
