Emmanuel Macron offered this Thursday to put on hold the controversial electoral reform in New Caledonia and has proposed a new referendum to get out of the most serious crisis in the last 40 years in the colony. The President of the Republic, on a trip of less than 24 hours to the French Pacific archipelago, has denounced “an absolutely unprecedented insurrection movement,” and promised that the authorities will retake “every neighborhood, every roundabout, every barrier.” The riots in this territory broke out on May 13 in response to the adoption in Paris of a law that updates the electoral roll of the territory, expanding it, and that threatens to dilute the weight of the independence vote.
Macron, after a day of meetings with local authorities, supporters of independence and those against it, businessmen and young people, declared: “I have committed to ensuring that this reform is not imposed now in the current context, and that we give ourselves a few weeks to allow the return of calm and the return of dialogue with a view to a global agreement.” The global agreement, he specified, must address, in addition to the electoral census, the organization of powers in the archipelago, economic inequalities on the island, the future of the nickel industry and the vote for self-determination, among other issues. “We want this agreement to be put to the vote of Caledonians,” he added.
Whether Macron’s proposal to restore calm succeeds will depend on the blockades being quickly lifted and independentists and non-independence supporters resuming dialogue. It is not clear if they will accept it, but it is the condition for shelving the project to reform the French Constitution that would substantially modify the electoral body, a project already adopted with clear majorities by the Senate and the National Assembly in Paris. Non-independence supporters agree with the reform, while pro-independence supporters oppose it. The calendar set by Macron provided for the final adoption of the norm, by both chambers, before the end of June; Now these plans are up in the air.
In a month, Macron will evaluate the progress in dialogue and peace and decide accordingly. For now, he has announced aid for reconstruction, as well as the deployment of special units and helicopters and armored vehicles. “Many of these neighborhoods are under the control of rioters who use almost insurrectional techniques that do not allow order to be maintained in a classical way,” he said. The president has asked local policymakers to call on the blockades to be cleared “in the hours and days to come.” “If this happens, the state of emergency will be lifted,” he promised.
The current census of New Caledonia dates back to 1998. With the reform, it would include those born since then and those who have been residing in the archipelago for more than 10 years, which will imply a reduction in the weight of the native population, the Kanaks, in favor of the population of European origin, the Caldoches. In New Caledonia, with a population of about 270,000 inhabitants, today 41% of residents declare themselves Kanaks; 24%, brothels.
The three referendums held between 2018 and 2021 were to culminate the long process that began with the Matignon Accords in 1988, which ended a near civil war in New Caledonia. In the three consultations, the no to independence triumphed. But the third and last one provided for by law, instead of closing wounds, reopened them. The independentists called for a boycott because they considered that the pandemic prevented voting properly. Furthermore, they accused the State of having abandoned its role as arbitrator and having assumed that of lawyer for French New Caledonia. With a participation of 44%, the refusal to become independent accounted for 96% of the votes.
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“No one saw this level of organization and violence coming,” Macron said this Thursday, before outlining a kind of mea culpa. “It must be noted that today there is no common vision of the future,” she added. He has also mentioned that “social inequalities have continued to grow” in the territory. Furthermore, he has admitted that the referendums “have not allowed things to be pacified”: “By implementing a logic of blocs, of yes or no, they led the sectors to oppose.”
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