The riots which broke out in New Caledonia on May 13 are commonly
presented as a break with the "peace process" initiated with the
Matignon agreements in 1988 and that of Nouméa in 1998. They are in any
case a logical consequence of these agreements, because they allowed the
French state - governed in turn by the right, the left or the center -
to keep New Caledonia under its control while they were supposed to make
possible its accession to independence .
In recent weeks, New Caledonia has experienced an insurrectional
situation (see Box 1 ), which was triggered by the constitutional bill
that the government had concocted to modify an electoral body specific
to the archipelago. This text adopted by the Senate on April 2 was to be
voted on by the National Assembly on May 14, then by the two Chambers
meeting in Congress before June 30. The dissolution of the Assembly
decided by Macron the day after the European elections reshuffled the
cards: since Congress could no longer be convened in time, he announced
on June 5 that he would "suspend" the bill in order to "give full force
to dialogue on the ground and to the return to order" on the Caledonian
territory. So, was this just a Jupiterian "bad blow"?
This is what the discourse of the separatists and their supporters
suggests. The Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front (FLNKS)
blamed Macron for the riots for having sought to "force through" its
bill. Thus, the general secretary of its main component, the Caledonian
Union (UC), declared on 21 May: "The government's practice breaks with
the method that has allowed New Caledonia to live in peace for the past
thirty-five years, following the Matignon Accords in 1988 and then the
Noumea Accords in 1998 (see box 2) , that is to say, respect for
consensus between the parties and the impartiality of the State."
BOX 1
The social tsunami of spring 2024
On May 13, the end of the "Ten Days for Kanaky" organized by the Cellule
de coordination des actions de terrain (CCAT, created in November 2023
by independentists to coordinate the mobilization against the reform of
the electoral body) turned into a riot: roads blocked, stores looted or
set on fire, cars burned, stone throwing... While clashes took place
between young people and law enforcement in several neighborhoods of
Nouméa, the capital of the territory, loyalist militias set up
roadblocks to "protect" other neighborhoods. According to the report
established on June 16 by the High Commissioner of the Republic in New
Caledonia, there were nine dead (including two gendarmes), hundreds of
people injured and 1,187 arrested. Two mutinies also took place at
Camp-Est, the prison in Nouméa (overcrowded with 95% Kanaks and other
Oceanians). 570 establishments (town halls, schools, social services
premises, etc.) were reportedly destroyed or damaged in a few days, and
the damage is estimated at 1.5 billion euros. Since all goods are
imported into the archipelago, shortages quickly appeared. According to
the New Caledonia Chamber of Commerce and Industry, on June 3, 5,000
people lost their jobs due to the riots and 15,000 will find themselves
on partial unemployment (i.e. a quarter of Caledonian salaried jobs). A
curfew was imposed from May 14 to June 17, a state of emergency was
declared by Macron on the 15th, and the TikTok network was suspended.
3,500 members of the "security forces" were still deployed in mid-June
in the territory to prevent them from being reinstalled by separatists
once the roadblocks had been evacuated by the police.
In fact, the recent Caledonian conflagration is part of the line of
successive Kanak revolts against the French state, since the latter made
the archipelago one of its colonies in 1853. It is a social revolt at
the same time as it reflects the reaction of an indigenous people
against colonialist policies aimed at making them a minority on their
land in order to monopolize it. The French state has alternated between
repression and promises or financial aid to the Kanaks, but it has also
used more underhanded methods - such as encouraging the arrival of
external populations and giving them the right to vote in local
elections. New Caledonia is indeed of great interest to it, on an
economic and geostrategic level: it is very rich in minerals (notably
nickel, of which it has about a quarter of the world's reserves) and it
offers it a military base in the South Pacific.
June 17, 2024. Petro Attiti Vocational High School.
Under the Pompidou presidency, the instructions given by Prime Minister
Messmer to the Secretary of State for the DOM-TOM Deniau in a letter
dated 19 July 1972 were to "prevent a nationalist claim by indigenous
populations" in New Caledonia by promoting "mass immigration of
metropolitan French citizens or those from overseas departments" and by
having "jobs reserved for immigrants in private companies".
The question of the electorate planned for the self-determination
referendums was then the stumbling block for the multiple statuses
proposed by successive governments, left or right, for the Caledonian
territory - and it frequently led to the instruction given by the Kanak
parties, which quickly became pro-independence, to boycott these or
other elections. In the French presidential election of 1981, they
called for a vote for Mitterrand because the Union of the Left had
included in its Common Programme "the innate and active right of the
Kanak people to independence"; but they then rejected the Lemoine
statute (presented in 1984 by Prime Minister Fabius to the National
Assembly) because the electorate for the self-determination referendum
scheduled for 1989 was not precisely defined and the Kanaks were already
drowned in other communities. In the 1983 census, they were only 42.6%
of a Caledonian population comprising Europeans (37.1%), Wallisians and
Futunians (8.4%), Tahitians (3.8%), Indonesians (3.7%), Vietnamese
(1.6%) and other communities (2.7%).
If the Matignon Accords shortly afterwards established a "special"
electoral body for the Caledonian elections, there was no shortage of
attempts to remove this "achievement", and the latest highlighted the
fragility of the "shield" to which the independence leaders are clinging.
BOX 2
The Matignon and Noumea agreements
The Matignon Accords of 26 June 1988 (supplemented on 20 August by those
of Oudinot) recognised Kanak culture and identity. They promised a
referendum on self-determination in 1998, with an electoral body
composed of people who had been established in New Caledonia for at
least ten years. This electoral body was also to be used to designate
the members of the Assemblies responsible for managing the three
provinces created - those of the North and the Loyalty Islands
(predominantly Kanak) and that of the South (where between two-thirds
and three-quarters of the 271,000 Caledonians live). The State retained
its sovereign powers in matters of defence, security, justice and
currency. It remained competent in the areas of education and
communications; and, to enable "the development of disadvantaged
regions", it provided investment credits to be distributed in the
proportion of 3/4 for the provinces of the North and the Islands and 1/4
for the South. The operating credits of the territory's budget are
allocated under the following conditions: 1/5 for the territory, 2/5 for
the Northern and Islands provinces, 2/5 for the Southern provinces.
Priority is given to local hiring on the job market, at an equal level,
and a program will ensure the training of 400 executives in order to
integrate Kanaks into the provincial administration. Finally, the
perpetrators of the homicides committed in Ouvéa on April 24, 1988 will
benefit from an amnesty - this has helped to shed a veil on the
atrocities committed by the military that day.
The Noumea Accord of May 5, 1998 states that an officially initiated
"peaceful decolonization" associates the descendants of the colonizers
("victims of History") and those of the colonized in the same "community
of destiny." He announced an economic "rebalancing" that would involve
the completion of major road and port works, and above all by
maintaining the distribution of state credits defined by the Matignon
agreements.
Legislative power would be exercised by the Provincial Assemblies, some
of whose members would constitute a 54-member Congress that would elect
a collegiate government proportionally, based on lists of candidates
proposed by the political groups. This Congress would draw up "laws of
the country" (controlled by the Constitutional Council) in various areas
(identity signs, employment, natural resources, etc.). The French
government would continue to finance the operation of Caledonian
institutions, would retain its sovereign powers, and would also have the
right to dissolve the Congress in the event of institutional instability.
The agreement provides for the gradual transfer to New Caledonia of
powers concerning education, the taxes and duties it will collect,
foreign trade, transport and communications, civil and commercial law as
well as civil security. But it postpones the holding of the referendum
on independence by sixteen to twenty years; and this referendum
becomes... three consultations of a special electoral body (meeting
strict conditions of birth, residence for twenty years in the territory,
and "material and moral interests") which must be carried out on the
territory at two-year intervals. Finally, this agreement is declared
"irreversible", and the partition of the country prohibited - the
temptation to secede being quite strong in the rich southern province.
In the end, Macron distinguished himself from his predecessors above all
by demonstrating more clearly/cynically than them his intention not to
let go of the archipelago. As soon as the figures from the last
referendum were known (see box 3) , he declared: "The Noumea Agreement
is reaching its legal term" and "Tonight, France is more beautiful
because New Caledonia has decided to stay there!" However, this
agreement stipulates that, whatever the result of the consultations,
"the political organization put in place[since]1998 will remain in
force, at its final stage of evolution, with no possibility of going
back"; and that the "political partners" will establish a Caledonian
Constitution if the yes is the majority, or a new status for the
territory within the French Republic if it is the no.
Hearing the statements of the pro-independence leaders or reading the
"left-wing" press, one gets the impression that Macron's maneuvers are
considered worse than those of Mitterrand who authorized the Ouvéa
massacre in 1988 to promote his re-election as President of the Republic
(see box 4) . The current President is criticized for having removed his
Prime Minister from the Caledonian issue to entrust it to his Minister
of the Interior and Overseas Territories Darmanin, a divisive figure; or
for having appointed Sonia Backès, the leader of the loyalists, as
Secretary of State for Citizenship in the Borne government, or for
having designated as rapporteur of the constitutional bill another
elected Caledonian loyalist, Nicolas Metzdorf. And Macron is also
accused of having repeatedly thrown oil on the Caledonian fire in recent
years. For example, when he threatened, on May 25, to submit his reform
of the Caledonian electoral body to a national referendum...
All these criticisms are fair - but how can we expect the representative
of a State to be the "neutral" (and friendly) partner of the populations
it colonizes? It is simply impossible because their respective interests
are antagonistic. Moreover, the government had an easy time, following
the three referendums, claiming to want to "thaw" the electoral body
from which the composition of the Territorial Assemblies, the Congress
and the Caledonian government is derived in the name of "democratic
requirements resulting from the constitutional principles and
international commitments of France". Using universal suffrage so prized
in liberal democracies against a "special regime" was clever: the
integration into the Caledonian electoral body of the 25,000 people with
"at least ten years of residence" in the territory would contribute to
further marginalizing the Kanaks.
BOX 3
The referendums provided for by the Noumea Accord
The question asked is: "Do you want New Caledonia to gain full
sovereignty and become independent?" The first referendum could have
been organized as early as 2014, but the various parties worked to
postpone it for fear of its outcome, and the composition of its
electorate has long crystallized tensions.
This referendum of November 4, 2018 was a good surprise for the
pro-independence camp since the no vote won with only 56.7% of the votes
cast (with a turnout of 81.01%) - while a fraction of the
pro-independence camp (the Union Syndicale des Travailleurs Kanak et des
Exploités and the Labor Party) had called for not voting. Its result has
(re)born the hope of gaining independence through elections; also, for
the referendum of October 4, 2020, the participation was 86%... and the
no vote was reduced to 53.3% of voters - only 10,000 votes short of winning.
But, for the referendum of December 12, 2021, the FLNKS called for not
going to the polls [1]- and this resulted in both an overwhelming
victory for the no vote and a massive abstention. The FLNKS had asked
Macron on November 21 to postpone this consultation because the covid-19
pandemic was then raging in the territory: the number of cases there
rose to 11,871, with 276 deaths mainly in Oceanian communities (more
than half of them among the Kanak, where customary mourning lasts a
month). Macron refused: in his campaign for re-election, he wanted to
put the "settlement of the Caledonian question" to his credit; moreover,
the new registrants on the special electoral list being mostly Kanak,
the postponement of the vote could have led to a victory for the yes.
With its 96.5% no to independence and its 56.1% abstentions, this
referendum recalled those that had taken place during the "events" in
1984, 1987 and 1988, where the independentists had called for their
active or passive boycott.
May 20, 2024. "Normandy" industrial zone in Noumea.
In any case, it can be said that the Matignon and Noumea agreements were
a fine trap for the Kanaks, because, while it is certain that the
balance of power was already not in their favour before, playing for
time by signing them, as the independence leaders did, did not bring
them independence either. And while the Matignon agreements were
approved on 6 November 1988 by 80.99% in the Northern Province and
85.10% in the Islands Province (compared to 42.81% in the South),
abstention there was 33.69% and 53.51% respectively. Furthermore, when
they learned of their content, the activists arrested after the
hostage-taking in Ouvéa protested by refusing to be released; and on May
4, 1989, Djubelly Wea, who had been one of their spokesmen, killed
Tjibaou and his deputy Yeiwéné Yeiwéné because he accused them of having
betrayed by signing them.
It is never easy for a person in power to honour a commitment. But
whether the pro-independence leaders made a mistake in judgment or were
naive in believing that the Matignon and Noumea agreements would forever
safeguard the Kanaks, participation in Caledonian institutions then led
them to want to strengthen the link with the metropolis instead of
breaking it - and, likewise, to confine themselves to the type of
"democracy" practiced there instead of promoting any kind of socialism.
These leaders seek the autonomy of a Kanaky/New Caledonia that the
French state would support financially and protect internationally.
Depending on the era and the positions of their parties, they speak of
"independence-association", "independence-partnership" or
"interdependencies" with France. And emphasizing the misdeeds of
colonialism rather than those of capitalism leads them to ask their
rulers for compensation for a "historical" injustice towards the Kanak
people without challenging the established economic and social order.
Daniel Goa, President of the UC, thus assured on May 26, 2021 in Paris:
"In the spirit of independence, sovereignty will not be combined with a
break with anyone. (...) During this[transition]period, Kanaky/New
Caledonia will sign interdependence agreements to guarantee the transfer
of all skills and resources. France will be able, if it wishes, to
become the leader."
Similarly, when in the summer of 2021 the leadership of the Caledonian
government fell for the first time to an independentist, Louis Mapou (a
figure of the Palika), he said in his general policy statement: "It is
(...) fundamental that, upon leaving the Noumea Agreement, the State and
New Caledonia consider ways and means that allow them to reconcile their
positions to best serve their shared strategic interests[and that
their]cooperation in the Pacific evolves and strengthens."
For the time being, the situation in the archipelago mainly reflects the
persistence of colonial relations.
Vanina, June 22, 2024
BOX 4
The "events" of the 80s
In order to denounce the Lemoine project, the FLNKS called for an active
boycott of the territorial elections scheduled for 18 November 1984,
while its leader, Jean-Marie Tjibaou, promoted the "national liberation
struggle" for "socialist Kanak independence" (IKS). This was the
starting point for the "events" of 1984-1988 - where the independence
activists already had as adversaries the loyalist militias (2,000 to
3,000 heavily armed far-right people) and the French state (significant
military forces were stationed on the territory).
The activists were active: roadblocks, occupations of town halls,
kidnapping of police officers, demonstrations... and, of the 50%
abstentions in the territorial elections, there were 80% of the Kanak
electorate. A state of emergency was declared on January 12, 1985, and a
curfew was imposed. On the 25th, Tjibaou declared the independence of
Kanaky and appointed his "provisional government". On the 27th, Jacques
Lafleur, leader of the Rally for Caledonia in the Republic (the main
loyalist force), announced that New Caledonia was in a state of
"self-defense"... Until the end of the year, there were only strikes,
fires, demonstrations, roadblocks, bombings, arrests, assassinations -
90 Kanaks would die in total. In March 1986, the right won the
legislative elections in France - and repression hardened under the
Chirac-Mitterrand "cohabitation".
On April 24, 1988, territorial elections and the first round of the
French presidential election were to take place - the two favorites of
which were Mitterrand, for a second term, and Chirac. The FLNKS called
for their active boycott and entrusted its local committees with the
task of making its position known. On April 22, activists from the
island of Ouvéa led by Alphonse Dianou (member of the UC) decided, in
order to apply this instruction, to replace the French flag with the
Kanak flag in a gendarmerie; but the action went wrong: a gendarme
reacted to the sight of them by shooting, a shootout ensued in which
four soldiers died, then the independence activists took 27 others
hostage before taking refuge in a cave. On May 5, Mitterrand signed the
order to storm it. This was "Operation Victor": 350 gendarmes,
paratroopers and GIGN intervened, and 19 Kanaks were savagely executed.
Mitterrand was re-elected. He instructed his new Prime Minister, Michel
Rocard, to resume dialogue between Tjibaou and Lafleur - and, on June
26, they accepted the Matignon Accords.
Notes
[1] Read, on oclibertaire.lautre.net, " From the struggle for socialist
Kanak independence to the negotiation of reinforced autonomy? "
published in Courant Alternatif of February 2022 .
http://oclibertaire.lautre.net/spip.php?article4215
_________________________________________
A - I N F O S N E W S S E R V I C E
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presented as a break with the "peace process" initiated with the
Matignon agreements in 1988 and that of Nouméa in 1998. They are in any
case a logical consequence of these agreements, because they allowed the
French state - governed in turn by the right, the left or the center -
to keep New Caledonia under its control while they were supposed to make
possible its accession to independence .
In recent weeks, New Caledonia has experienced an insurrectional
situation (see Box 1 ), which was triggered by the constitutional bill
that the government had concocted to modify an electoral body specific
to the archipelago. This text adopted by the Senate on April 2 was to be
voted on by the National Assembly on May 14, then by the two Chambers
meeting in Congress before June 30. The dissolution of the Assembly
decided by Macron the day after the European elections reshuffled the
cards: since Congress could no longer be convened in time, he announced
on June 5 that he would "suspend" the bill in order to "give full force
to dialogue on the ground and to the return to order" on the Caledonian
territory. So, was this just a Jupiterian "bad blow"?
This is what the discourse of the separatists and their supporters
suggests. The Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front (FLNKS)
blamed Macron for the riots for having sought to "force through" its
bill. Thus, the general secretary of its main component, the Caledonian
Union (UC), declared on 21 May: "The government's practice breaks with
the method that has allowed New Caledonia to live in peace for the past
thirty-five years, following the Matignon Accords in 1988 and then the
Noumea Accords in 1998 (see box 2) , that is to say, respect for
consensus between the parties and the impartiality of the State."
BOX 1
The social tsunami of spring 2024
On May 13, the end of the "Ten Days for Kanaky" organized by the Cellule
de coordination des actions de terrain (CCAT, created in November 2023
by independentists to coordinate the mobilization against the reform of
the electoral body) turned into a riot: roads blocked, stores looted or
set on fire, cars burned, stone throwing... While clashes took place
between young people and law enforcement in several neighborhoods of
Nouméa, the capital of the territory, loyalist militias set up
roadblocks to "protect" other neighborhoods. According to the report
established on June 16 by the High Commissioner of the Republic in New
Caledonia, there were nine dead (including two gendarmes), hundreds of
people injured and 1,187 arrested. Two mutinies also took place at
Camp-Est, the prison in Nouméa (overcrowded with 95% Kanaks and other
Oceanians). 570 establishments (town halls, schools, social services
premises, etc.) were reportedly destroyed or damaged in a few days, and
the damage is estimated at 1.5 billion euros. Since all goods are
imported into the archipelago, shortages quickly appeared. According to
the New Caledonia Chamber of Commerce and Industry, on June 3, 5,000
people lost their jobs due to the riots and 15,000 will find themselves
on partial unemployment (i.e. a quarter of Caledonian salaried jobs). A
curfew was imposed from May 14 to June 17, a state of emergency was
declared by Macron on the 15th, and the TikTok network was suspended.
3,500 members of the "security forces" were still deployed in mid-June
in the territory to prevent them from being reinstalled by separatists
once the roadblocks had been evacuated by the police.
In fact, the recent Caledonian conflagration is part of the line of
successive Kanak revolts against the French state, since the latter made
the archipelago one of its colonies in 1853. It is a social revolt at
the same time as it reflects the reaction of an indigenous people
against colonialist policies aimed at making them a minority on their
land in order to monopolize it. The French state has alternated between
repression and promises or financial aid to the Kanaks, but it has also
used more underhanded methods - such as encouraging the arrival of
external populations and giving them the right to vote in local
elections. New Caledonia is indeed of great interest to it, on an
economic and geostrategic level: it is very rich in minerals (notably
nickel, of which it has about a quarter of the world's reserves) and it
offers it a military base in the South Pacific.
June 17, 2024. Petro Attiti Vocational High School.
Under the Pompidou presidency, the instructions given by Prime Minister
Messmer to the Secretary of State for the DOM-TOM Deniau in a letter
dated 19 July 1972 were to "prevent a nationalist claim by indigenous
populations" in New Caledonia by promoting "mass immigration of
metropolitan French citizens or those from overseas departments" and by
having "jobs reserved for immigrants in private companies".
The question of the electorate planned for the self-determination
referendums was then the stumbling block for the multiple statuses
proposed by successive governments, left or right, for the Caledonian
territory - and it frequently led to the instruction given by the Kanak
parties, which quickly became pro-independence, to boycott these or
other elections. In the French presidential election of 1981, they
called for a vote for Mitterrand because the Union of the Left had
included in its Common Programme "the innate and active right of the
Kanak people to independence"; but they then rejected the Lemoine
statute (presented in 1984 by Prime Minister Fabius to the National
Assembly) because the electorate for the self-determination referendum
scheduled for 1989 was not precisely defined and the Kanaks were already
drowned in other communities. In the 1983 census, they were only 42.6%
of a Caledonian population comprising Europeans (37.1%), Wallisians and
Futunians (8.4%), Tahitians (3.8%), Indonesians (3.7%), Vietnamese
(1.6%) and other communities (2.7%).
If the Matignon Accords shortly afterwards established a "special"
electoral body for the Caledonian elections, there was no shortage of
attempts to remove this "achievement", and the latest highlighted the
fragility of the "shield" to which the independence leaders are clinging.
BOX 2
The Matignon and Noumea agreements
The Matignon Accords of 26 June 1988 (supplemented on 20 August by those
of Oudinot) recognised Kanak culture and identity. They promised a
referendum on self-determination in 1998, with an electoral body
composed of people who had been established in New Caledonia for at
least ten years. This electoral body was also to be used to designate
the members of the Assemblies responsible for managing the three
provinces created - those of the North and the Loyalty Islands
(predominantly Kanak) and that of the South (where between two-thirds
and three-quarters of the 271,000 Caledonians live). The State retained
its sovereign powers in matters of defence, security, justice and
currency. It remained competent in the areas of education and
communications; and, to enable "the development of disadvantaged
regions", it provided investment credits to be distributed in the
proportion of 3/4 for the provinces of the North and the Islands and 1/4
for the South. The operating credits of the territory's budget are
allocated under the following conditions: 1/5 for the territory, 2/5 for
the Northern and Islands provinces, 2/5 for the Southern provinces.
Priority is given to local hiring on the job market, at an equal level,
and a program will ensure the training of 400 executives in order to
integrate Kanaks into the provincial administration. Finally, the
perpetrators of the homicides committed in Ouvéa on April 24, 1988 will
benefit from an amnesty - this has helped to shed a veil on the
atrocities committed by the military that day.
The Noumea Accord of May 5, 1998 states that an officially initiated
"peaceful decolonization" associates the descendants of the colonizers
("victims of History") and those of the colonized in the same "community
of destiny." He announced an economic "rebalancing" that would involve
the completion of major road and port works, and above all by
maintaining the distribution of state credits defined by the Matignon
agreements.
Legislative power would be exercised by the Provincial Assemblies, some
of whose members would constitute a 54-member Congress that would elect
a collegiate government proportionally, based on lists of candidates
proposed by the political groups. This Congress would draw up "laws of
the country" (controlled by the Constitutional Council) in various areas
(identity signs, employment, natural resources, etc.). The French
government would continue to finance the operation of Caledonian
institutions, would retain its sovereign powers, and would also have the
right to dissolve the Congress in the event of institutional instability.
The agreement provides for the gradual transfer to New Caledonia of
powers concerning education, the taxes and duties it will collect,
foreign trade, transport and communications, civil and commercial law as
well as civil security. But it postpones the holding of the referendum
on independence by sixteen to twenty years; and this referendum
becomes... three consultations of a special electoral body (meeting
strict conditions of birth, residence for twenty years in the territory,
and "material and moral interests") which must be carried out on the
territory at two-year intervals. Finally, this agreement is declared
"irreversible", and the partition of the country prohibited - the
temptation to secede being quite strong in the rich southern province.
In the end, Macron distinguished himself from his predecessors above all
by demonstrating more clearly/cynically than them his intention not to
let go of the archipelago. As soon as the figures from the last
referendum were known (see box 3) , he declared: "The Noumea Agreement
is reaching its legal term" and "Tonight, France is more beautiful
because New Caledonia has decided to stay there!" However, this
agreement stipulates that, whatever the result of the consultations,
"the political organization put in place[since]1998 will remain in
force, at its final stage of evolution, with no possibility of going
back"; and that the "political partners" will establish a Caledonian
Constitution if the yes is the majority, or a new status for the
territory within the French Republic if it is the no.
Hearing the statements of the pro-independence leaders or reading the
"left-wing" press, one gets the impression that Macron's maneuvers are
considered worse than those of Mitterrand who authorized the Ouvéa
massacre in 1988 to promote his re-election as President of the Republic
(see box 4) . The current President is criticized for having removed his
Prime Minister from the Caledonian issue to entrust it to his Minister
of the Interior and Overseas Territories Darmanin, a divisive figure; or
for having appointed Sonia Backès, the leader of the loyalists, as
Secretary of State for Citizenship in the Borne government, or for
having designated as rapporteur of the constitutional bill another
elected Caledonian loyalist, Nicolas Metzdorf. And Macron is also
accused of having repeatedly thrown oil on the Caledonian fire in recent
years. For example, when he threatened, on May 25, to submit his reform
of the Caledonian electoral body to a national referendum...
All these criticisms are fair - but how can we expect the representative
of a State to be the "neutral" (and friendly) partner of the populations
it colonizes? It is simply impossible because their respective interests
are antagonistic. Moreover, the government had an easy time, following
the three referendums, claiming to want to "thaw" the electoral body
from which the composition of the Territorial Assemblies, the Congress
and the Caledonian government is derived in the name of "democratic
requirements resulting from the constitutional principles and
international commitments of France". Using universal suffrage so prized
in liberal democracies against a "special regime" was clever: the
integration into the Caledonian electoral body of the 25,000 people with
"at least ten years of residence" in the territory would contribute to
further marginalizing the Kanaks.
BOX 3
The referendums provided for by the Noumea Accord
The question asked is: "Do you want New Caledonia to gain full
sovereignty and become independent?" The first referendum could have
been organized as early as 2014, but the various parties worked to
postpone it for fear of its outcome, and the composition of its
electorate has long crystallized tensions.
This referendum of November 4, 2018 was a good surprise for the
pro-independence camp since the no vote won with only 56.7% of the votes
cast (with a turnout of 81.01%) - while a fraction of the
pro-independence camp (the Union Syndicale des Travailleurs Kanak et des
Exploités and the Labor Party) had called for not voting. Its result has
(re)born the hope of gaining independence through elections; also, for
the referendum of October 4, 2020, the participation was 86%... and the
no vote was reduced to 53.3% of voters - only 10,000 votes short of winning.
But, for the referendum of December 12, 2021, the FLNKS called for not
going to the polls [1]- and this resulted in both an overwhelming
victory for the no vote and a massive abstention. The FLNKS had asked
Macron on November 21 to postpone this consultation because the covid-19
pandemic was then raging in the territory: the number of cases there
rose to 11,871, with 276 deaths mainly in Oceanian communities (more
than half of them among the Kanak, where customary mourning lasts a
month). Macron refused: in his campaign for re-election, he wanted to
put the "settlement of the Caledonian question" to his credit; moreover,
the new registrants on the special electoral list being mostly Kanak,
the postponement of the vote could have led to a victory for the yes.
With its 96.5% no to independence and its 56.1% abstentions, this
referendum recalled those that had taken place during the "events" in
1984, 1987 and 1988, where the independentists had called for their
active or passive boycott.
May 20, 2024. "Normandy" industrial zone in Noumea.
In any case, it can be said that the Matignon and Noumea agreements were
a fine trap for the Kanaks, because, while it is certain that the
balance of power was already not in their favour before, playing for
time by signing them, as the independence leaders did, did not bring
them independence either. And while the Matignon agreements were
approved on 6 November 1988 by 80.99% in the Northern Province and
85.10% in the Islands Province (compared to 42.81% in the South),
abstention there was 33.69% and 53.51% respectively. Furthermore, when
they learned of their content, the activists arrested after the
hostage-taking in Ouvéa protested by refusing to be released; and on May
4, 1989, Djubelly Wea, who had been one of their spokesmen, killed
Tjibaou and his deputy Yeiwéné Yeiwéné because he accused them of having
betrayed by signing them.
It is never easy for a person in power to honour a commitment. But
whether the pro-independence leaders made a mistake in judgment or were
naive in believing that the Matignon and Noumea agreements would forever
safeguard the Kanaks, participation in Caledonian institutions then led
them to want to strengthen the link with the metropolis instead of
breaking it - and, likewise, to confine themselves to the type of
"democracy" practiced there instead of promoting any kind of socialism.
These leaders seek the autonomy of a Kanaky/New Caledonia that the
French state would support financially and protect internationally.
Depending on the era and the positions of their parties, they speak of
"independence-association", "independence-partnership" or
"interdependencies" with France. And emphasizing the misdeeds of
colonialism rather than those of capitalism leads them to ask their
rulers for compensation for a "historical" injustice towards the Kanak
people without challenging the established economic and social order.
Daniel Goa, President of the UC, thus assured on May 26, 2021 in Paris:
"In the spirit of independence, sovereignty will not be combined with a
break with anyone. (...) During this[transition]period, Kanaky/New
Caledonia will sign interdependence agreements to guarantee the transfer
of all skills and resources. France will be able, if it wishes, to
become the leader."
Similarly, when in the summer of 2021 the leadership of the Caledonian
government fell for the first time to an independentist, Louis Mapou (a
figure of the Palika), he said in his general policy statement: "It is
(...) fundamental that, upon leaving the Noumea Agreement, the State and
New Caledonia consider ways and means that allow them to reconcile their
positions to best serve their shared strategic interests[and that
their]cooperation in the Pacific evolves and strengthens."
For the time being, the situation in the archipelago mainly reflects the
persistence of colonial relations.
Vanina, June 22, 2024
BOX 4
The "events" of the 80s
In order to denounce the Lemoine project, the FLNKS called for an active
boycott of the territorial elections scheduled for 18 November 1984,
while its leader, Jean-Marie Tjibaou, promoted the "national liberation
struggle" for "socialist Kanak independence" (IKS). This was the
starting point for the "events" of 1984-1988 - where the independence
activists already had as adversaries the loyalist militias (2,000 to
3,000 heavily armed far-right people) and the French state (significant
military forces were stationed on the territory).
The activists were active: roadblocks, occupations of town halls,
kidnapping of police officers, demonstrations... and, of the 50%
abstentions in the territorial elections, there were 80% of the Kanak
electorate. A state of emergency was declared on January 12, 1985, and a
curfew was imposed. On the 25th, Tjibaou declared the independence of
Kanaky and appointed his "provisional government". On the 27th, Jacques
Lafleur, leader of the Rally for Caledonia in the Republic (the main
loyalist force), announced that New Caledonia was in a state of
"self-defense"... Until the end of the year, there were only strikes,
fires, demonstrations, roadblocks, bombings, arrests, assassinations -
90 Kanaks would die in total. In March 1986, the right won the
legislative elections in France - and repression hardened under the
Chirac-Mitterrand "cohabitation".
On April 24, 1988, territorial elections and the first round of the
French presidential election were to take place - the two favorites of
which were Mitterrand, for a second term, and Chirac. The FLNKS called
for their active boycott and entrusted its local committees with the
task of making its position known. On April 22, activists from the
island of Ouvéa led by Alphonse Dianou (member of the UC) decided, in
order to apply this instruction, to replace the French flag with the
Kanak flag in a gendarmerie; but the action went wrong: a gendarme
reacted to the sight of them by shooting, a shootout ensued in which
four soldiers died, then the independence activists took 27 others
hostage before taking refuge in a cave. On May 5, Mitterrand signed the
order to storm it. This was "Operation Victor": 350 gendarmes,
paratroopers and GIGN intervened, and 19 Kanaks were savagely executed.
Mitterrand was re-elected. He instructed his new Prime Minister, Michel
Rocard, to resume dialogue between Tjibaou and Lafleur - and, on June
26, they accepted the Matignon Accords.
Notes
[1] Read, on oclibertaire.lautre.net, " From the struggle for socialist
Kanak independence to the negotiation of reinforced autonomy? "
published in Courant Alternatif of February 2022 .
http://oclibertaire.lautre.net/spip.php?article4215
_________________________________________
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