young people divided between the French “big brother” and the desire to “free themselves from the tutelage”

“It’s windy, we can kite-surf and foil!”, rejoices Pierre-Julien from Anse Vata in Nouméa, in the south of New Caledonia. In the distance, the inflatable wings guided by the surfers look like multicolored butterflies, when we look at them from this emblematic beach of Noumea. Pierre-Julien is a teacher in Bourail, a town located in the center of the island. He and the 271,000 other inhabitants of the oceanic archipelago will have to vote on Sunday, December 12 “for” or “against” independence, thirty-three years after the Matignon agreements signed under the aegis of Michel Rocard.

However, in New Caledonia, half of the population is under 30 years old and therefore only experienced the period following these agreements. These young people have in their hands the future of the territory, for the third and last vote of this process of decolonization. In the commune of Bourail, the no independence has largely come out on top during the two previous referendums. France, “he’s a big brother, a mother”, believes Pierre-Julien, for whom New Caledonia needs France. “We are walking on bricks which have probably been paid for by France”, he justifies. If he will vote to remain in the bosom of Paris, it is for “purchasing power, currency, being secure … In short, having a system that works for everyone.”

Independence is, on the contrary, the only option according to Gaston, a native of Maré, one of the Caledonian islands. “As long as a Kanak is there, we will continue to piss you off until the end of time”, provides this 23-year-old carer. He does not think that France is helping the archipelago: “The wealth of our country, it is France which benefits from it. Here, the homeless are Kanak, not people of metropolis.” Gaston will vote, despite the call for the non-participation of the separatists because New Caledonia must according to him “to free oneself from French tutelage”. And he warns: if independence does not arrive at the top of the votes, “it may heat up”.

An educator from the suburbs of Nouméa – who wishes to remain anonymous – says he sees many disillusioned young people, who disagree with the line of pro-independence political parties. “There is a new generation which is a little fed up with seeing the political authorities held by the same faces for more than thirty years. We would like to have renewal”, he testifies. He too will slip a ballot in favor of independence. “It is above all for me the hope of creating a society in our image with ‘oceanity’, that is to say a way of thinking both Western but ‘Oceanian’. We want to create something that looks like us. “

Frédérique, Patricia and Luna, three girlfriends in their twenties, find themselves in this cultural in-between. They live in Saint-Louis, a Kanak tribe on the outskirts of Noumea. Patricia is for independence but will not vote, as the separatists demand, because of the health crisis and the deaths of Covid-19. “We must give the Caledonians time to mourn”, she judges.

Luna, she is against independence but she does not assert it too strongly, for “do not disrespect” to the elders of the tribe. “Old people think only of themselves, she annoys. If they are at the head of New Caledonia, what are they going to do more than France? “ This ambivalence sums up the feelings of these young Caledonians, who are looking for a future but are constantly overtaken by the history and divisions of their territory.