Is the solution to this crisis exclusively sovereign?

The archipelago is shaken by the revolt of the separatists against an electoral reform voted by Parliament. Four people, including a gendarme, died during the three nights of riots.

After three days of deadly riots, Emmanuel Macron therefore established a state of emergency in New Caledonia on Wednesday May 15 and Gabriel Attal announced the deployment of the army. The solution to this crisis is not exclusively sovereign, but for the executive, the return to republican order remains an essential prerequisite. When there are four deaths including a gendarme, hundreds of injured, stores looted, and residents terrorized, it is even an emergency. Reason why the Head of State decided to trigger this exceptional procedure. Order is nevertheless neither an end in itself nor a project, it is a tool. This is why Emmanuel Macron invited in a letter all New Caledonian representatives to resume dialogue with the executive to find a global agreement. This outstretched hand is also an admission of the failure of the government method, which has led to the current impasse.

The government has failed to reconcile the three legitimacies which clash in this New Caledonian issue. The first is political, it comes from the polls and results from three successive referendums, which rejected the independence of the archipelago between 2018 and 2021. The second is legal and relates to the current legislative process. A constitutional reform aimed at expanding the Caledonian electorate was indeed adopted in the same terms by the two Assemblies. But the executive was wrong to neglect a third, historical legitimacy, which has long supported the Kanak people’s demand for independence. A sign of this attitude, the government refused in December 2021 to postpone the third self-determination referendum, ultimately boycotted by the separatists, and it is this first blockage which is at the origin of the renewed tension.

How can the executive find a way out of the crisis? The road promises to be long and difficult. First, because Emmanuel Macron will have to regain the confidence of the separatists, who accuse him of having stepped out of his role as arbiter. And above all because after the three referendums, the Élysée considers that it is time to“invent” a new process, post-Nouméa agreements, to guarantee “the future of New Caledonia in the Republic”. A design which, in fact, buries any prospect of independence, at the risk of fueling an underground frustration conducive to future explosions of violence.