New Caledonians elect to remain part of France
NOUMEA, New Caledonia — New Caledonia, a scattering of islands in the South Pacific, will not mark the new year by becoming the world’s newest country.
In a referendum held Sunday, voters rejected independence overwhelmingly, with 96% electing to stay part of France, according to provisional results released Sunday by the French High Commission in New Caledonia.
But while the referendum failed, prompting those who voted “non” to fly the French tricolor in the capital, Noumea, the result does not signal an end to dreams of New Caledonian sovereignty.
“We are pursuing our path of emancipation,” Louis Mapou, New Caledonia’s president, said, brushing aside results of the referendum. “That is what is essential.”
Mapou is the first pro-independence leader to hold the official title of president in New Caledonia and the first from the Indigenous Kanak community that makes up about 40% of the population. He refers to the territory as a country.
A large portion of the Kanak pro-independence bloc boycotted Sunday’s vote after its plea for a postponement was rebuffed, leading to worries that the referendum’s legitimacy was undermined by nonparticipation. President Emmanuel Macron of France, who has made shoring up the country’s international profile a cornerstone of his campaign for reelection in April, refused a delay.
“France is more beautiful because New Caledonia chose to stay,” Macron said Sunday.
With its far-flung island outposts — such as French Polynesia in the Pacific Ocean and Reunion in the Indian Ocean — France boasts one of the world’s largest maritime profiles. But the recent collapse of a French submarine deal with Australia, a result of the United States and Britain swooping in instead, embarrassed Paris.
Macron had positioned France as a bulwark against China, which is expanding its clout in the Indo-Pacific.
Sunday’s vote was the third of three independence referendums promised by Paris after years of conflict in New Caledonia in the 1980s. In the second vote last year, 47% chose independence, up from 43% in the first referendum in 2018.
By 5 p.m. Sunday, voter participation had fallen to 42%, down from 79% during the 2020 referendum.
Kanak leaders had urged the French government to reschedule Sunday’s referendum for next year because a coronavirus wave had disproportionately affected their people. Lengthy Kanak mourning traditions, they argued, made political campaigning impossible.