“It’s up to him to find the words,” says the president of the Progressive Union party in Melanesia

“It’s up to him to find the words and behavior to calm things down”, estimates Tuesday May 21 on franceinfo Victor Tutugoro, president of the Progressive Union in Melanesia (UPM) party, while Emmanuel Macron must leave for New Caledonia. While the archipelago has been affected by riots for a week, Victor Tutugoro considers that the simple arrival of the head of state represents “already a good thing”.

The co-head of the FLNKS (Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front) negotiation cell hopes that this presidential trip will be able to “compete” to appeasement, but he considers that “everything will depend on what [le chef de l’État] will announce and the way in which he will address the entire population, particularly those who are at the roadblocks and contributing to the riots.

On the 14th, Victor Tutugoro announced on franceinfo that he would only go to Paris after “a mission” in New Caledonia to define a “method” in order to “resume the dialogue”. A “symbolic” preliminary gesture, he considered. Victor Tutugoro affirms that if Emmanuel Macron invites him to a meeting, he will go there with the aim of “at least the postponement of the constitutional bill” on the thawing of the electorate. “Let us give ourselves time (…), find the right method to move forward”he says.

The vice-president of the northern province community also recalls that “all the things that have happened for a week now” are “the result of an explosive situation, which exploded during the vote of the National Assembly”.