Pro-France parties leaders speaking on 19 February 2025 in Nouméa’s Anse Vata multi-purpose hall. Photo: RRB
As French Minister for Overseas Manuel Valls lands in New Caledonia on Saturday to pursue talks on its political future, the situation on the ground has again gained tension over the past few days.
The local political spectrum is deeply divided between the two main opposing camps, the pro-independence, and those wanting New Caledonia to remain part of France.
The rift has already culminated in May 2024, when civil unrest broke out, resulting in 14 deaths, several hundreds injured, thousands of job losses due to the destruction, burning and looting of businesses, and a material cost of over €2 billion.
Valls hosted talks in Paris with every party represented at New Caledonia's Congress from 4 to 9 February.
Those talks, held in "bilateral" mode, led to his decision to travel to Nouméa and attempt to bring everyone at the same negotiating table.
It is all about finding a way of finding an agreement that would allow to exit the Nouméa Accord and draw a fresh roadmap for New Caledonia's political future.
However, in the face of radically different and opposing views, the challenge is huge.
The two main blocs, even though they acknowledged the Paris talks may have been helpful, still hold very clear-cut and antagonistic positions.
Each camp seems to have their own interpretation of the 1998 Nouméa Accord, which until now defines a roadmap for further autonomy and a gradual transfer of powers.
The main bloc within the pro-independence side, Union Calédonienne (UC), which since last year de facto controls the wider FLNKS (Kanak Socialist National Liberation Front), has been repeatedly placing as its target a new "Kanaky Agreement" to be signed by 24 September 2025 and, from that date, a five-year "transition period" to attain full independence from France.
Within the pro-independence camp, more moderate parties, such as PALIKA (Kanak Liberation Party) and UPM (Progressist Union in Melanesia), have distanced themselves from a UC-dominated FLNKS, and are favourable to some kind of "independence in association with France".
On the pro-France side, the two main components, the Les Loyalistes and the Rassemblement-LR, have shown a united front. One of their main argumentations is based on the fact that in 2018, 2020 and 2021, three successive referendums on self-determination have resulted in three votes, each of those producing a majority rejecting a severance of ties with France.
However, the third and latest poll in December 2021 was boycotted by a large part of the pro-independence voters.
The pro-independence parties have since contested the 2021 poll result, even though, legally, it was ruled as valid.
Pro-France parties are also advocating for a change in the operating system to give each of New Caledonia's three provinces more powers, a move they described as an "internal federalism" but that critics have decried, saying this amounted to some kind of apartheid.
Talks required since 2022
The bipartisan talks became necessary after the three referendums were held.
The Nouméa Accord stipulated that in the event that three consecutive referendums rejected independence, then all political stakeholders should "meet and examine the situation thus generated".
There have been earlier attempts to bring about those talks, but some components of the pro-independence movement, notably the UC, have consistently dragged their feet.
Under a previous government, French Minister for Home Affairs and Overseas territories Gérald Darmanin, after half a dozen inconclusive trips to New Caledonia, even tried to push some of the most urgent parts of the political agreement through a constitutional reform process, especially on a change to New Caledonia's list of eligible registered voters at local elections.
This was supposed to allow citizens who have resided in New Caledonia for at least ten uninterrupted years to finally cast their votes, whereas until now, under the "frozen" electoral roll (a temporary measure imposed since 2009), only those residing before 1998 had this right.
Pro-independence parties protested, saying this was a way of "diluting" the indigenous Kanak votes.
The protest, in the name of Kanak existential identity, gained momentum and, on 13 May 2024, degenerated into massive riots.
Now the sensitive electoral roll issue is back on the agenda, only it will no longer be tackled separately, but will be part of a wider and comprehensive scope of talks regarding New Caledonia's political future.
Heavy schedule for Valls
On Thursday, Valls unveiled his programme for what is scheduled to be a six-day stay in New Caledonia from 22 to 26 February 2025.
During this time, he will spend a significant amount of time in the capital Nouméa, holding talks with political parties, economic stakeholders and representatives of the civil society and law and order agencies.
He will also travel to rural parts of New Caledonia.
In the capital, two solid days have been earmarked for "negotiations" at the Congress, with the aim of finding the best way to achieve a political agreement, if all parties agree to meet and talk.
On Tuesday 25 February, Valls also intends to pay homage and lay wreaths on Jean-Marie Tjibaou and Jacques Lafleur'sgraves.
They were the leaders of FLNKS and (pro-France) RPCR, who eventually signed the Matignon peace Accords in 1998 and shook hands after half a decade of quasi civil war, during the previous civil unrest in the second half of the 1980s.
Valls was then a young office member of French Prime minister, Socialist Michel Rocard, who made the Matignon agreement happen.
On several occasions, over the past few days, Valls has stressed the grave situation New Caledonia was facing, after the May 2024 riots, the resulting "devastated" economy and the need to restore a bipartisan dialogue.
He told public broadcaster Outremers La Première since the unrest started, France had provided financial support to sustain New Caledonia's economy.
'Fractures and deep wounds within New Caledonia's society'
"But blood has been shed", "there have been deaths, injuries, there are fractures and deep wounds within New Caledonia's society", Valls said.
"And to get out of this, dialogue is needed, to find a compromise...to prevent violence from coming back. I still believe those (opposing) positions are reconcilable, even though they're quite far apart", he said.
"I'm very much aware of the difficulties...but we have to find an agreement, a compromise".
One clear indication that during his visit to New Caledonia, the French minister will be walking on shaky grounds came a few days ago.
When, speaking to French national daily Le Monde, he recalled the Nouméa Accord included a wide range of possible perspectives from "a shared sovereignty" to a "full sovereignty", there was an immediate outcry from the pro-French parties, who steadfastly brandished the three recent referendums opposing independence and urging the minister to respect those "democratic" results.
"Respecting the Nouméa Accord means respecting the choice of New Caledonians", said Les Loyalistes - Le Rassemblement-LR in a release.
"Shared sovereignty is the current situation. It's all in the Nouméa Accord, which itself is enshrined in the French Constitution", Valls replied.
Over the past six months, several notions have emerged in terms of political future for New Caledonia.
It all comes down to wording: from independence-association (Cook Islands style), to "shared sovereignty", to outright "independence" or "shared sovereignty" (as suggested by French Senate President Gérard Larcher during his visit in October 2024).
A former justice minister under Socialist President François Hollande, Jean-Jacques Urvoas, well-versed into New Caledonian affairs, even suggested an innovative wording which, he believed, could bring about some form of consensus: the term "associated State", could be slightly modified into "associated country" ("country" being one of the ways to describe New Caledonia, also described as a sui generis entity under French Law).
This, Urvoas said, would make the notion more palatable.
Pro-France meetings indoors
On Wednesday evening, in an indoor multi-purpose hall in Nouméa, an estimated two thousand sympathisers of pro-France Rassemblement and Loyalists gathered to hear and support their leaders who had come to explain what was discussed in Paris and reiterate the pro-France bloc's position.
"We told [Valls] the 'bilaterals' are over. Now we want plenary discussions or nothing", pro-France Virginie Ruffenach told the crowd.
"We will tell him: Manuel, your full sovereignty is No Pasaran! (in Spanish 'Will not pass', a reference to Valls's Spanish heritage)", Nicolas Metzdorf, who is also one of the two New Caledonian MPs at the French National Assembly, told supporters brandishing Blue, White and Red French flags.
Metzdorf said he hoped that supporters would show up during the minister's visit with the same flags "to remind him of three 'no' from the three referendums".
But a ban on all open-air public meetings is still in force in Nouméa and its greater area.
The two-flag driving licence declared illegal. Photo: Gouvernement de la Nouvelle-Calédonie
Double flags banned on driving licences
Adding to the current tensions, an announcement also came earlier this week, regarding a court ruling on another highly sensitive issue: the flag.
The ruling came in an appeal case from the Paris Administrative Court.
It declared illegal a decision made in 2023 by the former New Caledonian (pro-independence) to add the Kanak flag to the local driving licence, next to the French flag.
In its 14 February ruling, the Appeal Court stated the Kanak flag could not be used on such official document because "it is not the official flag" of New Caledonia.
The Court once again referred to the Nouméa Accord, which said the Kanak flag, even though it was often used alongside the French flag, had not been formally endorsed as New Caledonia's "identity symbol".
The tribunal also urged the new government to make the necessary changes and to re-circulate the former one-flag version "without delay".
Meanwhile, the government is bearing the cost of a fine of 100, 000 French Pacific Francs (about US$875) per day, which currently totals over US$43,000 since 1 January.
The "identity symbols", as defined by the Nouméa Accord, also include a motto (the wording 'Terre de Parole, Terre de Partage' - Land of Words, Land of Sharing' was chosen) and even a national anthem.
But despite several attempts since 1998, no agreement has yet been reached on a common flag.
This week, hours after the court ruling, on social media pro-independence spheres, a picture is being relayed through numerous posts which says, "If this flags disturbs you, I'll help you pack your suitcase" (Si ce drapeau te dérange, je t'aide à faire tes valises).
