New Caledonia's FLNKS delegation meeting with French Overseas Minister Manuel Valls on 6 February 2025 Photo: FLNKS
Talks on the political and economic future of New Caledonia are being held in Noumea and Paris.
The talks, convened by French ministers Manuel Valls (Overseas Territories) and Amélie de Montchalin (Economy), will include participants both on location in Paris and online from Nouméa.
New Caledonia's economy is reeling from the effects of riots that broke out in May 2024, with an estimated 2.2 billion Euros in damage, as well as over ten thousand jobs lost due to several hundred businesses buildings destroyed by arson and/or looting.
On 5 February, 2025, as part of the French Parliament's belated endorsement of its 2025 budget, a ceiling of up to one billion Euros in loans was finally approved, as well as a grant of some 201 million Euros dedicated to the reconstruction of schools and other public buildings destroyed during the May 2024 riots.
The French assistance, promised late 2024, had since been in limbo due to France's political instability and the fall of the short-lived previous government headed by Michel Barnier due to the vote of a motion of confidence.
The Parliament's National Assembly (lower house) budget vote came despite yet another motion of defiance against new Prime Minister François Bayrou, which this time was defeated.
It was the second motion tabled against Bayrou since he was appointed prime minister early December 2024.
But New Caledonia's government is still attempting to re-negotiate with the French government to convert the loan-based assistance into non-refundable grants.
New Caledonia's government argues that the current setup would bring the French Pacific territory to unprecedented indebtedness levels.
Other modules of the French assistance are tied to French-demanded reforms in New Caledonia current operating mode.
The subject is believed to be well-placed on Saturday's meeting agenda, with participants from New Caledonia's government, business leaders and mayors, many of whom have warned of looming fresh unrest related to rise in post-riot poverty among the population.
Taken out of the strictly political talks, this could also be the first opportunity in a very long time for all parties to take part in a single event, regardless of their political orientation.
New Caledonia's Rassemblement Les Loyalistes delegation in Paris on 7 February 2025 Photo: Virginie Ruffenach
Hush-hush political talks underway
Since 4 February 2025, Overseas minister Manuel Valls has been engaged with all of New Caledonia's political stakeholders, both pro-independence and pro-France.
The talks, focusing on New Caledonia's political future, are held in Paris in "audition" mode, behind closed doors, with each party, separately, in what is described as a series of "bilateral" exchanges.
Valls said the privacy and "discretion" was necessary to ensure any future outcome is not jeopardized.
The French government is expecting those talks to lead to a comprehensive "trilateral" session, with all parties around the table, later, possibly before 31 March 2025.
Both camps, who hold radically different views on how New Caledonia should evolve in its post-Nouméa Accord (1998) future status, seem to agree on one thing: that France should not only be an observer, but a real "partner" that "takes its responsibilities" and puts an offer on the table.
The options mentioned so far by local parties range from a quick independence (a five-year process to begin in September 2025 following the anticipated signature of a "Kanaky Accord") to some sort of yet undefined "shared sovereignty" that could imply an "independence-association", or a status of "associated state" for New Caledonia.
Pro-France parties, however, have previously stated they were determined to push for New Caledonia to remain part of France and, in corollary, that New Caledonia's three provinces (North, South and Loyalty Islands) should be granted more separate powers, a formula sometimes described as "internal federalism" but criticised by pro-independence parties as a form of "apartheid".
Another complicating factor is that on both sides also, the pro-independence and the pro-France camps are also divided between their respective moderate and radical components.
In his only public statement on the issue since talks began, during question time in Parliament this week, Valls expressed concern at the current polarized situation:
"People talk about racism, civil war (...) A common and shared project can only be built through dialogue (...) The (previously signed, respectively in 1988 and 1998) Matignon and Nouméa Accords, both bearing the prospect of a decolonisation process, are the foundation of our discussions. I would even say they are part of my DNA", the Minister said.
Referring to any future outcome of the current talks, he said they will have to be "inventive, ambitious, brave in order to build a compromise and do away with any radical position, all radical positions, in order to offer a common project for New Caledonia, for its youth, for concord and for peace".
Valls said the current "bilateral" auditions were about "restoring a sincere and appeased dialogue between stakeholders, as part of the Nouméa Accord exit phase".
