Reaction to the fall of the local government and the appointment of the new one

Hello everyone,

The APROFED association is getting back to you at the beginning of this year to  respond to the fall of the local government on December 24, 2024, and the appointment of the new non-independence government this January.

If during the 2024 legislative elections, the association had advocated the alliance between Eveil Océanien and Calédonie Ensemble  in order to represent the 3rd way that a majority of Caledonians are seeking, it is today saddened to note that this union  is only being achieved for purely electoral purposes  in order to obtain positions.

The association regrets to note that the Calédonie Ensemble party  , whose leader advocates a kind of internal and external federalism, close to our vision,  is at the origin of the fall of the independence government . This  act is rightly perceived as an act of defiance ¹  by the independence parties  and the Kanaks themselves  against them, having the  direct consequence of delaying or even seriously complicating local negotiations  with a view to finding a common solution to present in Paris.

The association is saddened to see a part of the representatives of the Wallisian and Futunian community through the Oceanian awakening adhere to this and worse participate in the election of a new non-independence president from a party and an alliance (Loyalists) having become radicalized  and advocating through their projects of hyper-provincialization, territorial differentiation in reality nothing more nor less than a project of apartheid or even partition of the country.

The association hopes that the Pieds-Noirs and Wallisian and Futunian communities, partly represented by these two political movements, will not be affected by these political decisions in 2025, either in terms of their people or their property.  They have already suffered enough trauma in the past linked to the effects of colonization, notably the Algerian War for the former ^and  the Ave Maria episode of the St-Louis tribe for the latter.

Let us recall that for this last community, although some have opted to support the independentists like the RDO party, it is unfortunately poorly perceived by the Kanak population as Gabriel Païta, Kanak federalist, points out in his autobiographical book ³ , for whom the Wallisians came to New Caledonia  to take advantage of the opportunity  linked to  the Nickel fever. The contribution of these new voters  in the 1950s  gradually increased the number of votes in favor of the local right-wing parties (non-independence) thus short-circuiting the majority Kanak vote.  Gabriel Païta recalls  that there was no way to come to an agreement with the Wallisians,  even telling them that they had  a country, and that it was called Wallis.  In 1989, he  wanted the Wallisians to recognize that they resided on the lands of the chiefdom, which they refused to do.  In 1995, he even reminded the Wallisians during a trip to Mata-Utu that  it was because of them that the Kanaks had lost their electoral majority during the 1970s  and that since then there had been deep resentment, unlike the Asian community (Javanese, Vietnamese), “victims of history”,  who constituted the antithesis of the Wallisians  with whom  relations were better .

The association thus agrees with political scientist PC Pantz, who indicates in article ⁴  that  the fall of the local government risks weakening the resumption of dialogue,  foreshadowing a return of clashes . 

The association thus expresses its concern for the coming months, particularly between February and April 2025, which during the events of the 1980s were the months that led to the hostage-taking of the gendarmes of Poindimié and then Ouvéa by the separatists, leading to a military response from the State resulting in several dozen deaths on the Kanak side, even though they had surrendered.

Since history is an eternal recommencement,  the association hopes not to reach these extremes soon.

The association also recalls that the fall of the local government and the desire of the non-independence supporters to see the State regain control of the Caledonian institutions and the Nickel sector strangely resembles the year 1958  when, after the entry of Kanaks into the territorial assembly and the government council a few years earlier, these two institutions were suspended and dissolved by the governor (high commissioner at the time), and then in the 1960s, with the Jacquiot and Billote laws, the autonomy of New Caledonia was repealed and the State regained control over the Nickel resource. Thus, if the Macron government initially sent us back to the 1970s and 1980s with the insurrection of May 2024, it would seem that the project carried out by the State with the non-independence supporters is deeper, aiming to send us back 70 years. It is worth remembering, however, that once the laws were enacted, the President of the French Republic had to resign (1969), which is what some metropolitan political parties are now demanding of the current President, Emmanuel Macron. Will  history repeat itself?

4 New Caledonia: Will the fall of the pro-independence government weaken the resumption of dialogue?

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

The APROFED association