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The contradictions of the French state
Hello everyone,
The APROFED association is contacting you today to send you 2 interesting articles that summarize quite well the evolution of the statutes of New Caledonia and the entire overseas territory since 1946.
You can find these two articles at the links below:
Timeline of institutional and statutory developments in overseas territories | vie-publique.fr
New Caledonia: Changes in status since 1946 – Timeline | vie-publique.fr
As indicated in the title of our article, upon reading these 2 publications, several contradictions on the part of the French State regarding its relationship with its overseas territories become apparent.
The first is the constant game since 1946 of assigning powers or even autonomy to its territories in order to respond to the demand of the populations, only to then take them back for fear of a possible shift towards independence.
Just as recently happened with Catalonia and Spain, this “yo-yo policy” is partly responsible for the events of 1984 in New Caledonia and then for the 2024 uprising in the same territory.
The second contradiction lies in the application of the transferred powers. Indeed, many overseas territories have requested the possibility of negotiating at the economic level with their closest neighbors, within their respective zones, rather than being constantly aligned in flows with the metropolis, historically stemming from the colonial period, which are not always beneficial to them in terms of both cost and time.
However, while the Bougival-Elysée-Oudinot draft agreement does intend to confirm the partial transfer of diplomatic jurisdiction to New Caledonia, already stipulated in the Nouméa Accord, it is important to remember that the French State will continue to have the final say and control over agreements between the territory and its neighbors. It would not be surprising to see, as in 2001, the French State refuse the admission of the French overseas departments of Guadeloupe, Martinique, and French Guiana as associate members of the Association of Caribbean States, citing “the unity of the Republic” as the pretext.
The third contradiction is that departmentalization , or at least closer institutional ties between the overseas territories and mainland France, would benefit the former. It is worth recalling here that in 1999, in Fort-de-France (Martinique), ten pro-independence organizations from French Guiana, Guadeloupe, and Martinique announced joint actions aimed at having the “colonial” nature of the status of French departments recognized by international and regional bodies.
The fourth contradiction is France’s desire to always comply with international law, while the example of Mayotte is the perfect counter-example, something that opponents of France within the UN keep reminding us when it sets itself up as a lecturer.
Reading these two articles thus confirms the hyper-centralisation of the French State where all decisions, both political and economic, are made in Paris and that no real decentralisation has been undertaken, increasingly weakening the link between the overseas territories and the metropolis, reinforcing the feeling of domination present from the time of the colonies and leading some overseas populations to demand not simply autonomy but therefore independence.
It is interesting to note, with the example of New Caledonia, this unfounded fear on the part of the French State, which in 1987, with the PONS 1 statute, removed powers from the territory, only to grant it greater autonomy a year later in 1988 with the PONS 2 statute, following a referendum on the territory’s accession to independence that resulted in a resounding “no” vote (98%) with a 59% turnout, despite the FLNKS’s call for abstention. The State restored to the territory general political and regulatory powers , retaining only traditional sovereign powers (justice, currency, public order, defense, foreign relations, as well as labor law, audiovisual communication, and higher education).
This episode demonstrates that, in exchange for autonomy within France, the State is willing to make concessions and act in accordance with the wishes of its people. Autonomy, which is also one of the three components of federalism, would thus appear to be the middle ground between those who support independence and those who favor integration. However, this requires that the various parties—the State, loyalists, and separatists—take the lead, rather than each trying to impose their own solution, which is clearly a minority position on both sides.
The APROFED association