Emmanuel Macron arrived Monday July 24 in New Caledonia to begin a tour in the Pacific during which he must look into the institutional puzzle of the overseas territory, against the backdrop of the threat of a boycott from part of the independence camp. The Head of State landed shortly before 9 a.m. Paris time (07 a.m. GMT) at La Tontouta airport in Noumea.
Shortly after his arrival, he must record a duplex interview which will be broadcast in the 1:00 p.m. newspapers of TF1 and France 2, to close the political sequence started in mid-April after the pension crisis and which resulted in a cabinet reshuffle last week. Follow our live.
Upon his arrival, Emmanuel Macron said he wanted to open a new page of the institutional project in New Caledonia. He wants to lay the foundations for the statute to come following the three referendums which said no to independence – He wants to work on political and institutional subjects and on reforms of the Constitution: he will make announcements on this subject.
Visit “historical”according to the entourage of the Head of State, the first of a French president “in the Pacific outside our territories” since the visit, in 1966, of Charles de Gaulle to Vanuatu, then called New Hebrides and under Franco-British administration. Expected in several Pacific archipelagos from July 24 to 28, Emmanuel Macron should reaffirm the French presence there in the region and listen to local demands.
The visit will begin with a symbolic gesture : the president must give Monday evening the insignia of commander of the Legion of honor to Marie-Claude Tjibaou, widow of the assassinated Kanak leader Jean-Marie Tjibaou. During his first trip to New Caledonia in 2018, Emmanuel Macron had submitted to the collegiate government of the territory the two acts of taking possession of this territory, in 1853, in the name of Napoleon III.