International Relations

Will France lose a South Pacific possession?

Unlike the other major European imperial powers, France has retained bits and pieces of its once large colonies, most of them small islands, like Guadeloupe and Martinique in the Caribbean and Mayotte and Réunion in the Indian Ocean. They have been incorporated directly within the French Republic as overseas departments and appear satisfied to be part of France. France has not given up any overseas territory since 1977, when Djibouti in Africa gained its independence. But by 2019 another piece of the empire may attain sovereignty. In the South Pacific archipelago of New Caledonia, a referendum on independence will be held in November. Its 268,000 inhabitants, living in an area of 18,576 square kilometres, may become the world’s newest state. But according to the 2014 census, the indigenous Melanesian Kanaks make up only 44 per cent of the total population. The rest are people of French origin or other parts of the Pacific region. The island territories comprising New Caledonia were acquired by France between 1853 and 1865, during the age of imperialism. The remote islands were used as a penal colony from 1854 to 1922. Once the prisoners had completed their sentences, they were given land to settle. These people, originally from metropolitan France, are often known as Caldoches. More recent French arrivals are referred to as Métros. French colonial policy in New Caledonia marginalized the Kanaks from the economy and political system and sought to assimilate them into the French Empire through an influx of French settlers. In response, Kanak resistance to these policies has been strong. After an 1878 rebellion, the early plantation economy collapsed, and the nickel mining era began. The economy was dominated by French colonist businessmen in Nouméa, the capital. Indeed, by 1903, nearly all Kanaks on Grande Terre, the principal island, were confined to reservations. In 1917, resistance to this state of affairs resulted in another revolt. In 1946, the colonial status of New Caledonia was changed to an overseas territory, and for the first time, Kanaks were given French citizenship. With the nickel boom of the 1970s another major migration wave began with many economic migrants arriving in New Caledonia from other French possessions, such as Wallis and Futuna, as well as French settlers who had left Algeria after North Africa was lost to France. Indigenous nationalistic movements elsewhere in Melanesia, such as Fiji, had a profound effect on Kanaks, who now became the only large Melanesian population still subject to colonialism. A movement for total independence began in 1975, led by the Union Multiraciale de Nouvelle-Calédonie. In 1984, proindependence parties in New Caledonia came together in the Front de Libération Nationale Kanak et Socialiste (FLNKS). There followed intense political animosity between pro-independence Kanaks and anti-independence Europeans with their assimilated allies. A referendum held in 1987 was boycotted by Kanaks, as they felt it didn’t promise full independence. A period of violence ensued. In April 1988, militants attacked a police station on Ouvéa, one of the Loyalty Islands. Four gendarmes were killed and others held hostage in a cave. When the French military counterattacked, 19 Kanaks perished. In May 1998 the Accord de Nouméa, an agreement between FLNKS and other groups with the territorial and French national governments, was signed. The agreement recognized the trauma caused by colonization on the Kanak people. It turned New Caledonia into a “special territorial entity within the French Republic,” and promised a referendum on full independence by 2018. On Nov. 4 the territory is scheduled to vote on a separation from France. French President Emmanuel Macron visited New Caledonia in May and implied that the territory needed France to protect it from Chinese expansionism. “New Caledonians are tired of our current system of society,” independence leader Daniel Goa, head of the Union Calédonienne, declared. “They cannot take it anymore.” Legislative elections held in 2014 saw 25 of 54 seats going to pro-independence members and 29 to those supporting continuing ties with France. The ethnic Europeans, who mostly oppose independence, tend to be highly nationalistic. In last year’s French presidential election, the far-right candidate Marine Le Pen received nearly 30 per cent of the votes in New Caledonia compared with Macron’s 13 per cent. The nationalists hope a sovereign New Caledonia would become “ambassadors for Oceania” to France and Europe. They also promise to safeguard the status quo with the two regional powers, Australia and New Zealand.