Patrick
Decloitre, Correspondent French Pacific
Desk
After three solid days of talks in retreat mode,
New Caledonia’s political parties have yet to reach an
agreement on the French Pacific territory’s future
status.
The talks, held with French Minister for
Overseas Manuel Valls and French Prime Minister’s special
advisor Eric Thiers, have since Monday moved from Nouméa to
a seaside resort in Bourail – West coast of the main island,
about 200 kilometres away from the capital – in what has
been labelled a “conclave”, a direct reference to this
week’s meeting of Catholic cardinals in Rome.
However,
the Bourail conclave is yet to produce any kind of white
smoke, and no one, as yet, claims “Habemus Pactum” to say
that an agreement has been reached.
Under heavy
security, representatives of both pro-France and
pro-independence parties are being kept in isolation and are
supposed to stay there until a compromise is found to define
New Caledonia’s political future, and an agreement that
would later serve as the basis for a pact designed to
replace the Nouméa Accord that was signed in
1998.
The talks were supposed to conclude on
Wednesday, but it has been confirmed that the discussions
were going to last longer, at least one more day, probably
well into the night.
Valls was initially scheduled to
fly back to Paris on Thursday, but it has also been
confirmed that he will stay longer.
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Almost one year
after civil unrest broke out in New Caledonia on 13 May
2024, leaving 14 dead and causing €2.2 billion in damages,
the talks involve pro-France Les Loyalistes, Le
Rassemblement, Calédonie Ensemble and pro-independence
FLNKS (Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front),
UNI-PALIKA (Kanak Liberation Party).
Éveil Océanien,
a Wallisian-based party, defends a “neither pro, nor against
independence” line, what it calls a “third way”.
The
talks, over the past few days, have been described as “tense
but respectful”, with some interruptions at times.
The
most sensitive issues among the numerous topics covered by
the talks on New Caledonia’s future, are reported to be the
question of New Caledonia’s future status and its future
relationship to France.
Other sensitive topics include
New Caledonia’s future citizenship and the transfer of
remaining key powers (defence, law and order, currency,
foreign affairs, justice) from Paris to
Nouméa.
Valls, who is visiting New Caledonia for the
third time since February 2025, said he would stay in New
Caledonia “as long as necessary” for an inclusive and
comprehensive agreement to be reached.
Earlier this
week, Valls also likened the current situation as “walking
on a tightrope above embers.”
“The choice is between
an agreement and chaos,” he told local media.
On both
sides of the discussion table, local parties have all stated
earlier that bearing in mind their respective demands, they
were “not ready to sign at all costs.”
The most
hard-line pro-independence views, from FLNKS, are demanding
full sovereignty while on the pro-France side, the line is
to consider that link as unquestionable, after three
referendums were held there between 2018 and
2021.
Valls’s approach was still trying to reconcile
those two very antagonistic views, often described as
“irreconcilable”.
“But the thread is not broken. Only
more time is required”, local media quoted a close source as
saying.
Last week, an earlier session of talks in
Nouméa had to be interrupted due to severe frictions and
disagreement from the pro-France side.
Speaking to
public broadcaster NC la 1ère on Sunday, Rassemblement
leader Virginie Ruffenach elaborated, saying “there had been
profound elements of disagreements on a certain number of
words uttered by the Minister (Valls)”.
One of the
controversial concepts, strongly opposed by the most radical
pro-French parties, was a possible transfer of key powers
from Paris to Nouméa, as part of a possible
agreement.
“In what was advanced, the land of New
Caledonia would no longer be a French land”, Ruffenach
stressed on Sunday, adding this was “unacceptable” to her
camp.
She also said the two main pro-France parties
were opposed to any notion of
“independence-association”.
“Neither Rassemblement,
nor Les Loyalistes will sign for New Caledonia’s
independence, let this be very clear”.
The pro-France
camp is advocating for increased powers (including on tax
matters) for each of the three provinces of New Caledonia, a
solution sometimes regarded by critics as a form of
partition of the French Pacific territory.
In a media
release on Sunday, FLNKS “reaffirmed its…ultimate goal was
Kanaky (New Caledonia’s) accession to full
sovereignty”.
Series of fateful
anniversaries
On the general public level, a feeling
of high expectations, but also wariness, seems to prevail at
the news that discussions were still inconclusive.
In
1988, the Matignon-Oudinot peace talks between
pro-independence leader at the time, Jean-Marie Tjibaou and
pro-France leader Jacques Lafleur, were also held, in their
final stage, in Paris, behind closed doors, under the close
supervision of French Prime Minister, Socialist Michel
Rocard.
The present crucial talks also coincide with a
series of fateful anniversaries in New Caledonia’s recent
history: on 5 May 1988, French special forces ended a
hostage situation and intervened on Ouvéa Island in the
Gossana grotto, where a group of hard-line pro-independent
militants had kept a group of French gendarmes.
The
human toll was heavy: 19 Kanak militants and 2 gendarmes
were killed.
On 4 May 1989, one year after the
Matignon-Oudinot peace accords were signed, Jean-Marie
Tjibaou and his deputy Yeiwene Yeiwene were gunned down by
hard-line pro-independence Kanak Djubelly Wea.
Valls
attended most of these commemoration ceremonies, at the
weekend.
On 5 May 1998, the Nouméa Accord, now aged
27, was signed between New Caledonia’s parties and then
French Prime Minister Lionel Jospin.
The Nouméa pact,
which is often regarded as a de facto Constitution, was
placing a particular stress on the notions of “re-balancing”
economic wealth, a “common destiny” for all ethnic
communities “living together” and a gradual transfer of
powers from Paris to Nouméa.
The Accord also
prescribed that if three self-determination referendums
(initially scheduled between 2014 and 2018) had produced
three rejections (in the form of “no”), then all political
stakeholders were supposed to “meet and examine the
situation thus generated”.
The current talks aimed at
arriving at a new document, which was destined to replace
the ageing Nouméa Accord and bring New Caledonia closer to
having its own Constitution.
Valls said he was
determined to “finalise New Caledonia’s decolonisation”
process.
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