France warned against ‘recolonising’ New Caledonia

Nouméa: The Kanak people won’t accept France’s attempt to recolonise New Caledonia, a proindependence delegate has told the United Nations.

Addressing a UN’s decolonisation committee seminar on the Pacific in Saint Lucia, Dimitri Qenegei said since 2020 the French President Emmanuel Macron and his overseas minister Sebastien Lecornu had been taking unilateral decisions.

Qenegei said the signatories to the 1998 Noumea Accord stopped having their annual meetings in 2019 and the date for the referendum on independence last year was set without the consent of the Kanak people.

Paris decided to go ahead with the third and last referendum under the Noumea Accord despite pleas by the pro-independence camp to delay the vote because of the impact of the pandemic on the Kanak people.