Kanak flags lifted high at pro-independence rally in Nouméa, the capital and largest city of the French special collectivity of New Caledonia. Photo: RNZ Pacific/ Lydia Lewis
Analysis - New Caledonia's Southern province President, pro-France Sonia Backès, is facing a barrage of criticism following statements she made at the weekend, calling for the French Pacific territory to be partitioned.
She made the call during a long 35-minute speech relayed on the Southern Province's Facebook account on Sunday.
In a lengthy statement, on French national "Bastille" day 14 July, Backès, who leads one of the most radical fringes of the pro-French (Loyalists) movement opposed to independence, touched on several topics affecting New Caledonia, especially the persisting riots that started on 13 May, about changes proposed to be made by the French government which would alter the eligibility conditions, thus allowing any citizen residing more than ten years to cast their vote at local elections.
The constitutional amendment (which is now believed to have stalled, for lack of a French National Assembly, one essential part of the bicameral French Congress supposed to endorse the Bill by a required majority of two-thirds) was perceived by the pro-independence Kanak movement as a way of diluting their political representation.
The Bill's legislative progress sparked violent and deadly riots mostly in the capital Nouméa and its suburbs, causing the death of 10 persons (eight civilians, mostly Kanak and two French gendarmes), over seven hundred businesses and private residences looted and set on fire, close to 10,000 people losing their jobs and damages amounting to some €2.2 billion.
Over 3500 French security forces are still deployed on the ground in a bid to restore full law and order, with a strong focus on dismantling the roadblocks erected and maintained by rioters.
New Caledonia Southern Province’s controversial President Sonia Backès. Photo: Province Sud
In her statement, which itself was a first in New Caledonia's affluent Southern province protocol history, Backès had a go at New Caledonia's Nouméa Accord.
The three-way autonomy-loaded deal was signed in 1998 by France, with pro-independence and pro-France political movements.
It was designed to set a path for New Caledonia's political future, increased autonomy, and possible independence over a twenty-year timeframe.
Backès blamed the Accord's "romantic spirit" that promoted the idea that "in less than twenty years", New Caledonians would succeed in forming one people sharing a "common destiny."
"No one is naive enough to believe that tomorrow, New Caledonians from Nouméa will lead the same lifestyle as people from the tribes of the Northern Big Island and outer Islands," she said.
"Just like oil and water don't mix, I regretfully conclude that the Kanak world and the Western world, after more than 170 years of common life, still hold antagonisms".
"The Nouméa Accord wanted to impose a fusion or an assimilation. It has only generated an implosion," she said, lashing at the 26-year-old document.
"This common destiny has failed...the project of an institutionally united New Caledonia, based on a living together, one with the other, is over and done with", she said.
"When two forces are opposed and both camps are convinced that they legitimately defend their values, they find themselves faced with a choice: either they fight until one of them dies, or they choose to part and live better", Backès told her social networks audience.
Nouméa Accord's embedded safeguards
She said, unlike the present situation where each of New Caledonia's three provinces was topped by New Caledonia's Congress (parliament), one "opportunity" was to grant them more "autonomy", which would entail a de facto partition of the French Pacific archipelago.
However, the much-criticised Nouméa Accord contains an article dedicated to this scenario: it says (Article 5) that the results of any future referendum will always "apply globally to the whole of New Caledonia" and that if those results were different from one province to the other, "one part of New Caledonia cannot alone access full sovereignty or maintain alone a different type of connection with France".
New Caledonia's three provinces are the Southern Province (the most affluent, ruled by the loyalists), the Northern Province (north of the same main island of Grande Terre) and the Loyalty Islands group (which comprises the three outer islands of Maré, Lifou and Ouvéa).
Both the Northern and Islands provinces are ruled by pro-independence parties.
PALIKA’s political bureau holds a press conference earlier this year. Left to right: Jean-Pierre Djaïwé, spokesman Judickaël Selefen and Charles Washetine. Photo: LNC
Strong reactions from local parties
Moreover, local political parties have been swift to react to Backès' suggestions of a province's "autonomisation" or "empowerment", which has also been described by some social network commentators as a way of endorsing Pacific-style apartheid.
From the pro-independence platform, the FLNKS which is also one of the main partners who signed New Caledonia's political agreements in 1988 (Matignon-Oudinot) and 1998 (Nouméa), its political bureau's spokesman Aloisio Sako, who is also the President of the Rassemblement démocratique océanien (RDO), one of the parties within the FLNKS), said her project was "out of the question".
"Madame Backès is a fan of very strong announcements that create tension in the country," he said.
"First when she said, 'I'm going to make a mess' we know the consequences.
"Today she wants to push the pro-independence people back to the Northern and the Islands provinces. This is out of the question.
"The provinces were created to share power, but there was no question in the minds of the leaders who signed the Nouméa Accord that we would then put the Kanaks there, the Pacific islanders there, and the Europeans there.
"This was not the spirit of the Nouméa Accord. And we are part of this construction of living together for a common destiny", Sako told French public broadcaster Nouvelle-Calédonie la 1ère.
On the anti-independence side, one of the parties closest to Backès's Les Loyalistes, the Rassemblement-Les Républicains Virginie Ruffenach (who is also Vice-President of the Southern province), believed that controversial statement was "good".
"Obviously this is a good statement for us. Already, in 2019 and 2020, our Rassemblement party was in favour of more powers for the provinces. It did happen in 1988, we achieved very strong provincial autonomy and it worked, it brought peace and development to New Caledonia. From 1988 to 1998, there was peace and very strong development in New Caledonia. Then, in 1998, there was a refocus on New Caledonia and that's when the problems started to arise. When everything goes wrong, you have to return to simple principles", she told NC la 1ère.
Youth protest peacefully in April 2024. Photo: RNZ Pacific / Lydia Lewis
A moderate component of the pro-independence FLNKS, the PALIKA (Kanak Liberation Party), in a statement released on Tuesday, condemned what it terms a "demagogic", "irresponsible" speech that is "dangerous for our country's unity and cohesion".
"If those (who signed the 1988 and 1998 agreements) have effectively restored peace, they have also engaged our country on the path of decolonisation through a process of political, geographical, economic and social" re-balancing, the PALIKA stated, stressing on the notions of building "one country and one people."
The suggested partition of New Caledonia would entail "ethnic, cultural and economic" repercussions.
Even though the recent events have affected the notion of "living together", "nothing and no one will question the FLNKS's will to build one people", PALIKA spokesman Judickaël Selefen stated.
"This violence must be condemned, but it has not killed our 'living together', on the contrary....It forces us to imagine a consensual political solution that must allow us to project ourselves into a shared, sustainable and at last permanent future", the party said.
PALIKA suggests that the best solution for New Caledonia's political future is "full sovereignty in partnership with France".
Another reaction came from the Éveil océanien party (a group mostly seated on the large Wallisian and Futunian community residing in New Caledonia), whose member at the Southern province, Petelo Sao, said he did not support Backès's suggestions.
"These are proposals but that is not what we support. I don't think the Nouméa Accord was a dream for 26 years. I think that living together requires us to elevate our spirits on the situation and not to fuel controversies or to endorse extremist speeches. On the contrary, we should rather stay away from this speech", he said.
Ten more armoured Centaur vehicles delivered on Thursday Photo: French High Commission
Waning support
On the national French level, on Tuesday, daily Le Monde also published a story, alleging Backès hard-line stance was increasingly criticised and disapproved of, even within New Caledonia's pro-France camp.
Entitled "a loyalist in times of lost battles", the story takes stock of the Southern Province President's dwindling support, both on the local and French national scenes.
"By radicalising her position, which she tried to impose on Paris, the president of the Southern province lost the support of the non-independence camp and that of the head of state, Emmanuel Macron", Le Monde writes, focusing on her latest 14 July "unbridled radical" speech.
Even though she still has the backing of freshly-re-elected pro-French National Assembly MP Nicolas Metzdorf and of Rassemblement's Ruffenach, who both, like her, have denounced the results of the recently-held French snap elections, alleging fraud, "dictatorship" or "terrorism", other pro-France politicians now seem to have second thoughts.
Kanak and former senator (1992- 2011), Simon Loueckhote, went as far as saying in mid-May (just a few days after the riots started) that "the radicalization of the pro-independence partners was a consequence of Loyalist "blindness".
In early June, four members of New Caledonia's local government, all regarded as close to Backès, publicly turned their back on her in openly signing a "petition for peace".
This included high-profile pro-France leaders such as Dumbéa Mayor Yoann Lecourieux (Rassemblement-Les Républicains, LR), who publicly accused her of having "ignited the fire" of large-scale unrest and Nouméa Lady Mayor Sonia Lagarde.
Usually, discreet mogul Didier Leroux and other leading business figures also seem to have withdrawn their support to Backès, including in the form of funds for future electoral campaigns, the Daily reveals.
The first local electoral deadline, for the provincial elections, could take place sometime in 2025.
