The separatists of the Kanak National Liberation Front and Socialist refuse to go to Paris in September to participate in the committee of the signatories of the Noumea agreement organized by Gérald Darmanin.
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The storm rumbled on Saturday July 23 in Dumbéa, on the outskirts of Nouméa, where the extraordinary convention of the Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front (FLNKS) was held. A weather in line with the relations that the independence coalition currently maintains with the State. Since the third and last referendum on the independence of the Nouméa agreement (1998), on December 12, 2021, the link continues to deteriorate, to the point that some wonder if the fragile stability and peace which has been prevailing for thirty -Cinq years in New Caledonia are not today in danger. “This deaf dialogue unfortunately recalls that of the 1980s, which led to the tragedy of Ouvéa. It is therefore very worrying for the long term”, analyzes Benoît Tépied, anthropologist at the CNRS, specialist in New Caledonia.
Ultimate Step of the decolonization process established by the Noumea agreement, the December referendum was boycotted by the entire independence movement, which had asked for the postponement due to the health crisis. Long remained exempt from COVID-19, the pebble had in turn been struck by the virus in September 2021, hitting the countryside and making dozens of victims, especially among the Oceanians, where death normally implies rituals and clan gatherings.
Result, the ballot saw the overwhelming victory for supporters of maintaining New Caledonia in France, with a score of 96.5 %, but the participation capped at 43.9 %. It had reached 81 % and 85.7 % in the first two referendums in 2018 and 2020, already won by the loyalists, first with 56.7 % of the votes and then with a more narrow score of 53.3 %. If in April the Council of State, seized by the customary Senate, where the traditional Kanak authorities sit, rejected the request for cancellation of the results, arguing in particular that its validity is not “subject to a participation rate”, The FLNKS continues to qualify it as “phony referendum”. He also accuses Emmanuel Macron “of rushing the end of the Noumea agreement with the complicity of the local right”, of which yet another recomposition saw in May the emergence of a Confederation together! She sent two Renaissance Caledonian deputies a month later (ex-Republic on the march) to the National Assembly. 2> “State coup”
After the presidential and legislative elections, discussions between Caledonian partners and the State are supposed to resume to develop a series of the Noumea agreement, constitutionalized. But the government accumulates awkwardness. Ephemeral Minister of Overseas, Yaël Braun-Pivet canceled a trip to New Caledonia at the last minute at the last minute at the end of June, to run for the presidency of the Palais-Bourbon. A missed opportunity to appease the spirits, because the minister should have participated in the inauguration of a peace square in Nouméa, where a statue of the emblematic handshake was erected between Jacques Lafleur and Jean-Marie Tjibaou , when signing the Matignon agreements on June 26, 1988.
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