The legislative elections in Kanaky New Caledonia were historic. In the second round on July 7, the FLNKS candidates won the majority of votes and one in two MP while anyone living in the country could vote provided they had French nationality and were registered on an electoral list of one of the municipalities of the country. Kanaks are therefore a minority among registered voters. Despite this, the outgoing anti-independence deputy Metzdorf was narrowly elected in the anti-independence stronghold in the South, and Emmanuel Tjibaou won largely in the 2nd constituency. On this basis, there is little doubt that the electoral list specific to the consultations on the return to independence voted overwhelmingly for pro-independence candidates. In this electoral list created by the Decolonization Agreement signed in Nouméa, the Kanaks are in the majority, because a French immigrant and his children must justify strict conditions of length of residence to have the right to vote in this election, as well as in the provincial elections which determine the local executives and the Kanaky New Caledonia Congress which then chooses the Government.

The majority of Caledonians voted for independence candidates

A week after this historic defeat of the anti-independence activists, one of their leaders chose the date of the Bastille day to announce a plan which is similar to a secession of the Southern Province with a view to organizing the partition of the country in order to remove the Nouméa region from New Caledonian sovereignty. It is the refusal of the common destiny. It is also the illustration of a fact : anti-independence leaders are aware that they are waging a rearguard battle and that the return of independence is inevitable. They therefore want this independence to happen in bad conditions, starting by calling to divide the country to maintain their power in a pro-French enclave.
This process is reminiscent of the tactics implemented to organize the secession of Mayotte from the Comoros. This has allowed Paris to maintain its administration on the territory of another sovereign state since 1975, with all the problems that this can cause.

The South Province “French department” like Mayotte?

Before the elections, let us recall the position taken by MP Metzdorf, who implicitly wanted to transfer to Paris many powers exercised by the Caledonian government in order to manage the territory as a French department from Paris.
Here are arguments from the speech of Sonia Backès, a leader of the anti-independence activists who was Emmanuel Macron’s minister before being beaten in the senatorial elections by the FLNKS.
“The Kanak world and the Western world have, despite more than 170 years of common life, antagonisms that are still insurmountable.” “An institutional reform aimed at the empowerment of the provinces must now be seriously considered. It must be seen as a necessary evolution towards peaceful and respectful coexistence between communities of values ​​which, although different, share the same territory », she declared, « since living together is a failure and the confrontation is no longer tolerable, let us walk side by side”.

No question to “push back the independentists” in the islands and the Northern Province

The FLNKS deplored the comments of the former member of the French government. Aloisio Sako, president of the RDO (Oceanian Democratic Rally), in charge of running the FLNKS political office recalled that Sonia Backès is “a fan of very strong announcements which put tension in the country. Today it wants to push back the independentists to the Province of the Islands and the Northern Province. There is no question. The provinces were to share responsibilities with the Caledonians, and in particular the Kanak people who, for a very long time, were on the margins of responsibilities.
But there was no question in the minds of the signatories (of the Nouméa Decolonization Agreement — Editor’s note) that we would then have the Kanaks there, the Oceanians there and the Europeans there, it was not the spirit of the Nouméa Accord and we are part of this construction of living together for a common destiny”.
Will Paris let the anti-independence leaders who refuse the common destiny and the Nouméa Accord do their thing?

M.M.