Reaction to the altercation suffered by the Minister for Overseas Territories

Hello everyone,

The APROFED association is contacting you this week to respond to the visit of the Minister for Overseas Territories to the territory and the altercation he suffered on the public highway at the hands of non-independence elected officials.

While the association is saddened by such a spectacle, it congratulates the minister for using the right term to describe loyalist thinking, namely “revisionist.” As a reminder, revisionism consists of reconsidering, or even completely challenging, a commonly accepted fact or theory. Although not prohibited by law, like Holocaust denial, the annoyance caused by loyalists at the reminder by the Minister for Overseas Territories that there is indeed a “first people” in New Caledonia, led some metropolitan newspapers to describe loyalist elected officials, who are Macronist card-carrying members, as radicalized, no longer hiding their connections with the far right . ¹

The position of the pro-independence MP within the GDR group, on the far left in the National Assembly, like the majority of overseas MPs, is not aimed at helping with the deradicalisation of thoughts and conciliation with a view to finding an agreement on the current conflict.

The association is also surprised by the “egalitarian” remarks made by the non-independence MP who claims that there can be no hierarchy in society . There should therefore no longer be any difference between employees and bosses, between children and parents, etc. Wouldn’t such a vision be akin to communism?

The association is also surprised by the slogans aimed at defending democracy, the notion of one man = one vote on placards held in particular by women. They had to wait 100 years longer to obtain the right to vote than men in France.

Beware, therefore, of the instrumentalization of these great principles and great ideas, used by some as decoys with a view to directing a large number of people towards less noble projects, such as that of “internal federalism” supported by the loyalists, which is not federalism, aiming for some at “a departmentalization” of the territory, notably for the Southern Province ² .

The association does not understand such outbursts on the part of loyalist elected officials, since France, to the great displeasure of the independence supporters, will never abandon New Caledonia and its “green gold”, Nickel, which, as we recall, was one of the objectives of colonization , namely to conquer new territories in order to derive potential income from exploitable wealth (mining or other).

Moreover, with a French army twice the size of the Kanak population in terms of numbers, the situation in New Caledonia is completely different from that of Algeria and other colonies that obtained their independence not only through arms but also through numerical superiority, at the human level.

The fact remains that the State is now faced with the problem of knowing what more to put in the balance vis-à-vis the Kanak separatists, who already have one of the most advanced statuses within the Republic, which all other communities envy, not only overseas but also mainland France. Although this status is, as we have repeatedly pointed out, a decoy. The laws of the country are most often amended by the Constitutional Council, making the State the true and sole legislator. Thus, after legislative identity and legislative specialty, the association doubts that the State will offer New Caledonia the next step, namely its legislative sovereignty, thus concluding the federal project implemented in 1988 by the Matignon-Oudinot agreements, by Michel Rocard.

The “martyr document” proposed before the 2024 crisis by G. Darmanin clearly illustrates the approach of the State wishing to go back as General De Gaulle had done with the Deferre framework law, going back on the latter with the Billotte and Jacquinot laws, thus taking back for nearly 30 years the autonomy of New Caledonia for the benefit of Paris.

Thus, despite the loyalists’ invectives towards the State, the fact remains that the latter needs them in order to avoid having to negotiate directly with the independentists who would then request UN mediation, which they are already doing . The State is seeking to position itself as arbiter in a conflict in which it is one of the two protagonists alone with the independentists, thus leading it, in the context of failure of negotiations and possible unrest, particularly armed, to legitimize the intervention of force, or even the army, as in 1988, de facto putting the country under its tutelage, sending the desire for reinforced autonomy to the Greek calends.

This is why, faced with this game, the independence supporters have affirmed that they do not want to take up arms again and to play for time, not to say the deterioration of the situation, leading the State to have to cough up a little more, at least to maintain a minimum of activities for its nationals on the ground who, otherwise, would come to think about leaving the territory, no longer justifying the presence of the State in Melanesia.

History being an eternal recommencement, the association hopes in this month of February, that the events of February and April 88 (hostage taking of gendarmes) will not be repeated because although this resulted for a few years in a seizure of the territory by the State, which is what the loyalists wanted, and in the Matignon and then Nouméa agreements, giving more autonomy to the territory, which is what the independence supporters wanted, and to keep the country within the republic, which is what the State wanted, this unfortunately led to the death of more than 20 people and as many bereaved families. Let us hope that the saying that you always have to wait for a death for things to move forward does not apply again.  

The association thus hopes that the upcoming two-day negotiations in Noumea will lead to concrete institutional proposals from the state, similar to those made for the economic sector. While the state is willing to share its sovereignty more fully with New Caledonia, on the condition that it remains French, this has not resulted in any concrete proposals.

In conclusion, the association wishes to congratulate the speech given by Mr Santacroce apologising for the attitude of the two loyalists towards the minister, because this does not correspond, in fact, as Caledonians, all ethnicities combined, to our way of doing things and our way of life, demonstrating once again that these two elected officials do not represent all Caledonians.

We wish you a good read and remind you that federalism is the only solution to reconcile unity in diversity.

The APROFED association