The separatists criticize Paris for its haste to adopt a major reform of the electoral body, the examination of which in the Assembly was the starting point of the violence. The outcome of several years of a dialogue of the deaf.
Just over three weeks before the European elections, the executive sees its agenda shaken up by the situation in New Caledonia. On Wednesday, Emmanuel Macron declared a state of emergency in the archipelago and the government deployed the army and reinforced the number of law enforcement officers to deal with pro-independence riots which began on Monday. Friday May 17, the High Commissioner of the Republic recognized that the control of several neighborhoods in the territory was not “more assured”. Five people have died since the start of this wave of violence: three young Kanak civilians and two gendarmes.
Emmanuel Macron had invited Caledonian elected officials to a videoconference on Thursday to consider a way out of the crisis, but the proposal remained a dead letter. THE “different actors do not wish to dialogue with each other”, declared the Elysée. A silence which illustrates the breakdown in dialogue between Paris and Nouméa, after several years of progressive degradation.
The violence in the archipelago broke out on the sidelines of the examination in the National Assembly of a constitutional reform project aimed at unfreezing the electoral body in New Caledonia. To date, provincial elections are reserved for those who were registered on the electoral lists in this territory in 1998 and their descendants. As a result, one in five French voters in the territory is today excluded from this local election. The executive and local loyalist (anti-independence) elected officials wish to open the elections to residents who do not meet these conditions but have been living on the archipelago for at least ten years. “The unfreezing of the electoral body for provincial elections is a legal and democratic necessity”, assures Matignon. This is the meaning of the constitutional revision finally voted on by the Assembly, on the night of Tuesday to Wednesday, which must be approved by parliamentarians in Congress to be adopted.
However, the current system, established by the Nouméa agreement of 1998, aims to maintain better representation of Kanaks, indigenous people increasingly a minority in New Caledonia. “We understand that people who have lived here for 20 years want to vote, but we still have to discuss the conditions.” opposite Jean-Pierre Djaïwé, head of the National Union for Independence group in the Congress of New Caledonia, which denounces reform “unilateral”. A point of view shared by the other main independence party:
“Before discussing the electorate, we must complete the Nouméa agreement on decolonization.”
Pierre-Chanel Tutugoro, president of the UC-FLNKS group and nationalists in the Congress of New Caledoniaat franceinfo
In the Nouméa agreement, it is in fact planned that the status of the archipelago will be debated after a third and final referendum on independence. This did take place in 2021, and the “no” won for the third time, but the “yes” supporters had called for a boycott of the vote, in particular due to the Covid-19 epidemic and its consequences on participation.
“For us, the third consultation did not take place, we are contesting the results”assène today Pierre-Chanel Tutugoro, president of the UC-FLNKS group and nationalists in the Congress of New Caledonia. “We had to organize this third referendum, because if we postponed it, it would then fall during the presidential and legislative elections, retorts a former executive advisor. And then, the stakeholders met in June 2021 and held a referendum before the end of the year.” On election day, abstention amounts to more than 56.1%, compared to 14.3% during the previous vote, a year earlier. The “yes” to independence goes from 46.7% to 3.5%.
Despite this massive boycott, the executive takes note of the results and relaunches discussions around a constitutional reform in the summer of 2022, during a visit by Gérald Darmanin to the “Caillou”, nickname of the largest island of the archipelago. “I will take all my time to see how we can build the institutional future of the island together,” he then says. But at the same time, he seems ready to acknowledge that the time has come to revise the electoral rules. “It’s simple, the executive did things backwards.” regrets Jean-François Merle, former overseas advisor to Michel Rocard, who followed the negotiation of the Matignon agreements at the end of the 1980s. “He saw fit to initiate this very important reform without first finding local agreement. This is the result: forty years of work ending up on the ground. It’s a huge waste.” continues this specialist.
Political power is also confronted with divisions on the spot. “For four years, we have been in recession, and the country has lost 8,000 people. So yes, the loyalists are putting a lot of pressure on the State to move forward”recognizes Nicolas Metzdorf, loyalist deputy of the presidential majority, cited by The world. “The executive focused too much on the question of thawing the electorate when it was necessary to have a balance and also think about socio-economic questions. What does the Kanak gain in this story?” sighs a former power advisor.
In 2020, when Jean Castex was appointed head of government, the thread became looser. While Matignon traditionally managed the Caledonian question, it is Sébastien Lecornu, the Minister of Overseas Affairs between 2020 and 2022, who is placed on the front line. “Jean Castex directly managed two referendums and received the delegations at Matignon”today defends the entourage of the former head of government. “We must also remember that he was very taken by Covid-19”adds one of his relatives.
Then, in May 2022, those overseas lose their full ministry, which makes the elected officials of these territories jump. According to our information, the new Prime Minister, Elisabeth Borne, would have liked to keep the Caledonian file, but it fell into the hands of Gérald Darmanin, who became Minister of the Interior and Overseas Territories.
“Gérald Darmanin necessarily has a very security, very institutional vision, and it is a mistake not to have a full-fledged Overseas Ministry.”
A former executive advisorat franceinfo
Very involved, the former LR elected official has visited the archipelago seven times since 2022. And, initially, he is praised for his openness, and organizes several meetings with New Caledonian elected officials. But the machine seizes up again with the appointment, in July 2022, of Sonia Backès (Renaissance) to the State Secretariat in charge of Citizenship. The president of the assembly of the southern province of New Caledonia, close to Sébastien Lecornu, is fiercely opposed to independence. His appointment is seen as taking sides by the government. “If it is to take care of New Caledonian citizenship, we are in trouble, because it is for the open electorate”, worries Daniel Goa, president of the pro-independence Union Calédonienne party, at the microphone of La 1ère. “She had to be rewarded, explains a former advisor, because she had called to vote [pour Emmanuel] Macron, and it has been a long time since there has been a minister [originaire] of the Pacific.
For his part, Gérald Darmanin continues to monitor the Caledonian file. In April 2023, even if the loyalists and separatists refuse to meet during a meeting organized in Paris, the minister welcomes “constructive discussions” and of “the quality of exchanges” on the future of the archipelago. In June, he went to New Caledonia and assured that the separatists had agreed to discuss the electoral thaw in view of the next provincial elections, scheduled before the end of 2024.
But the analysis of the latter is quite different: “The government put pressure on it”, critic Pierre-Chanel Tutugoro. “With [Gérald] Darmanin, the change in method was more and more violent. He didn’t want to hear us and despised us“accuses Marie-Pierre Goyetche, spokesperson for the Labor Party and member of the Cell for coordinating actions on the ground, a group singled out by the Minister of the Interior since the start of the riots. At the beginning of April, the appointment of Nicolas Metzdorf, the loyalist deputy from New Caledonia within the majority, as rapporteur of the text on the unfreezing of the electorate in the Assembly, further strained the situation. “A provocation, an irresponsible and dangerous attitude for the country”denounces the political office of the FLNKS independence coalition. “We made the choice of knowing the filedefends the Renaissance group. Who better than those who live there to talk about such specific subjects?”
The debate, already explosive, is also part of a tight timetable. “Oceanians need time, consensus. This is the complete opposite of the government’s method”observed from franceinfo Mathias Chauchat, professor of public law at the University of New Caledonia. “The calendar ax does not work with Oceanian culture”also warns former Minister of Justice Jean-Jacques Urvoas, rapporteur in 2015 of the permanent information mission on the institutional future of New Caledonia. The impasse is such that during hearings led by Nicolas Metzdorf ahead of the examination of the reform project, three former Prime Ministers – Jean-Marc Ayrault, Manuel Valls and Edouard Philippe – all pleaded for a takeover of the file by Gabriel Attal, to try to end the crisis, reports The world on May 4. But the course will not change until the text arrives at the Assembly, two weeks later, and the conflagration of New Caledonia.