New Caledonia has 270,000 inhabitants, and Nouméa, which is the main city, about 95,000.
In New Caledonia there are the kanaks, they are the French Melanesians, and the caldoches, who are the descendants of the colonists or the convicts. The population is also made up of Reunionese, West Indians, Asians and French from metropolitan France.
Marianne left Rouen about twenty years ago. She followed her husband to this South Pacific archipelago. Contrary to appearances, New Caledonia is not really in the middle of nowhere since 1500km to the west, crossing the Coral Sea, there is the Australian coast, and further south, New Zealand.