On 12 December, pursuant to the Nouméa Agreement of 5 May 1998, will be organized a new referendum in New Caledonia. A third time, Caledonian citizens will be led to answer the same question: “Do you want New Caledonia to reach full sovereignty and become independent?” In 2018, the answer had been not 56.7%. In 2020, she was still no, but this time at 53.3%.
On Sunday, given the political circumstances, with the call for the “non-participation” of the Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front (FLNKs), it is likely that in the image of Pierre in the New Testament, Citizens registered on the special list of electors responds a third time not to the question asked. From then on December 13, when the rooster has sung three times, after these three not, what to do?
The equation is not easy because on that date, the status of New Caledonia will rest on a precarious balance. New relations between New Caledonia and France must necessarily be woven over a transitional period of eighteen months, from December 13, 2021 to 30 June 2023. The French State will then be held by a constitutional obligation of open a political negotiation. The Nouméa Agreement provides that “if the answer is still negative, political partners will meet to examine the situation thus created.” At this point, we enter the unknown: what will be the “political partners” concerned, what will be the method of discussion, what will be the content of the project, what will be the electoral body called to pronounce?
If we start from the assumption that no will be largely majority, it will be up to the “political partners” to agree at least on a timetable of discussions. The latest statements of the FLNKS suggest that the phase from December 13, 2021, at the end of June 2022, that is to say until the national [presidential and legislative] elections, do not will not be a conducive period for a serene political discussion. Nevertheless, during this first phase, a committee of signatories could be brought together in particular to make the balance sheet of the Nouméa Agreement on the Institutional, Economic and Social Plan, but also taking into account the logic of decolonization which animates it.
A country with common destiny
Slight on the many positive aspects of this historic agreement, but also identify what has not worked, seems to be a prerequisite for any political discussion. Without going into detail, note simply that the main objective of the agreement, to include those who populate this country in a common destiny has already been largely realized. If we except some boutefeux, no one thinks more to draw up against the other “French people” and “Kanak people”.
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