A draft agreement that is not one

Hello everyone,

The APROFED association is getting back to you this week following the AFP consultation and press publication of the confidential draft agreement submitted by the Minister for Overseas Territories to local New Caledonian partners.

Below you will find the decryption of this document produced by NC1ere at the following link: DECRYPTION. What the draft agreement on New Caledonia proposed by the State contains

If the association had been able to comment favorably on the first document, called the summary document, submitted by the Minister for Overseas Territories during his first visit to the territory last February in view of the innovative proposals made there (see Opinion on the State’s summary document and draft of a Caledonian Constitution by the IA – APROFED ), it is quite different for this second ^document after the summary made by the journalists, which seems to be the extension of the current Noumea Agreement (ADN) corrected at the margins .

Indeed, the proposal for self-organization, for the transfer of “competence of competence,” in other words, of internal sovereignty allowing the finalization of the federal process initiated during the Matignon Accords and continued with those of Noumea, which would have made it possible to offer the independence supporters a “small independence” immediately while waiting for the definitive one which would have been the subject of a new vote on self-determination in around thirty years, is gone.

Regarding this point, if it is mentioned again in the document, it will have to obtain a 3/5 majority in the Congress of New Caledonia to be adopted. Therefore, the separatists, who currently hold a little less than half of the seats, would have to mobilize beyond their own camp to be able to trigger a referendum on this subject, making this possibility de facto impossible .

There is also no mention of the fundamental law (or Constitution), which, given the proposals made in the document, would no longer make any sense. Imposed from outside, New Caledonia would thus have a Constitution emptied of its substance, without real sovereignty, even shared (internal).

Regarding sovereign powers, these would remain entirely under the control of the State. None would be transferred. The State is here taking up the proposal of the center-right party Calédonie Ensemble to simply allow Caledonians to be trained with a view to joining the management of the various State bodies such as justice, police, army, etc.

Although they are said to be shared, the State would in reality retain full and complete control. The list of measures, committees, commissions, announcing any sharing is only a false pretense , which could be described as magic powder, by which the independentists are not fooled, believing that it is a disguised way of prolonging dependence on the French State. Finally, this document only reflects an even stronger bond of belonging to France (see The broad outlines of Valls’ draft agreement for New Caledonia – Radio1 Tahiti )

Concerning governance, the State is this time siding with the loyalist extremists who want to strengthen the provinces by granting them fiscal powers , currently specific to the territory, announcing the transformation of the current Caledonian government, emptied of its substance, into a phantom government , not to say a puppet, which is already being denounced by the independence supporters who see it as a plan to partition the country.

The association proposes to the State, if it believes this proposal is well-founded, that it apply it to itself in this case as well, by relinquishing this competence to the benefit of its regions!

The only positive point, which remains to be confirmed by analyzing the original text, is that of citizenship, with the granting of citizenship to natives born to parents who are already Caledonian citizens themselves. New arrivals must, within 15 years, prove their ties to the territory and undergo a citizenship test. The association nevertheless recalls on this point that as long as the State retains judicial jurisdiction and legislative sovereignty with the control of the country’s laws by the Council of State and Constitutional, any advantage allowed by local laws to Caledonian citizens will be null and void because rejected by the State through the previously named institutions, as is the case today. Thus, citizenship would represent at most a piece of paper with no more value than toilet paper. It should be remembered that this citizenship should already have been established during the ADN period, which was not the case.

The association regrets the behavior of the State , certainly not new, which allows itself to make promises that it does not keep , to dare to present a draft agreement as empty as the one expected on the high cost of living overseas. The French State finds itself with New Caledonia today in the same situation as the Spanish State with Catalonia in 2017 which unilaterally declared its independence due to a promise of reinforced autonomy not kept by the central State. 

This way of doing things, reminiscent of the era of the French Community of General De Gaulle , which , adorned with the notion of federalism, in reality only offered its colonies a decoy , not to say a scam, in order to continue to control them. We all know the rest. With, of course, losses and fracas, almost all of them became independent. The case-by-case treatment of each overseas territory, rather than applying a single solution for all of them, which federalism would represent, clearly demonstrates the State’s strategy of divide and rule.

France is once again demonstrating its desire not to engage in this transition to a federal system , which it believes, if it were to succeed in New Caledonia, would quickly contaminate the rest of France’s overseas territories, not only but also the metropolitan regions themselves, leading to the end of the centralization of power by Paris. This fear of shared sovereignty is also found at the European level, where France is blocking its development. The argument often put forward by France regarding New Caledonia as a “laboratory” for testing new governance and decolonization solutions, new mechanisms useful to France, such as federalism, seems in reality to be nothing more than hot air like the rest. France wants neither independence nor federalism, but the closure of this issue, particularly at the UN, by the pure and simple integration of the territory into it, something that the Caledonians refused with the status of overseas territories in 1946.

Although it has spoken in favour of a status of enhanced autonomy for Western Sahara from Morocco, it appears that France does not wish to apply to itself what it recommends to others, respecting the saying to the letter of “do as I say, not as I do”.

This does not bode well for the association, especially as the anniversary of the May 13, 2025 uprising approaches.

The replacement of the haussaire (prefect) by a person who, according to some, would show more firmness, due to his training as a former military man, (see The appointment of Jacques Billant “reflects a deliberate choice by the State: that of firmness”, the first reactions to the change of high commissioner in New Caledonia ) leads one to think that the State would like to force through its draft agreement at the end of April (see REPLAY. Towards an agreement on the future of New Caledonia? “It must be concluded by the end of the month”, specifies Manuel Valls ) and therefore anticipates this time a reaction from the independence supporters , which would be entirely normal, since none of their proposals have been taken into account. The latter even raised the hypothesis of not being present when the Minister of Overseas Territories returns at the end of April (see: FLNKS still uncertain of its participation in future negotiations on the future of New Caledonia ). With such a project presented by the Minister, it would indeed be surprising if they wanted to stay around the table, thus reproducing the “Lepredour” scenario of 2020. The disclosure of the proponents of the agreement by the press led the State to backtrack by describing the draft agreement as a simple working document and that it was not a question of unilateral proposals from the State . (see: Institutional future of New Caledonia: the State takes stock after the disclosure of the draft agreement ).

It remains to be seen how the independence supporters will react to the “yo-yo” policy proposed by the State? Will they let it happen without saying anything, as in the 1960s with the Jacquinot and Billote laws, losing their autonomy for nearly 20 years, or will they repeat the scenario of the Ouvéa cave, which certainly caused nearly 20 deaths but allowed them to regain what they had been demanding since the end of the Defferre framework law of 1956, namely a status of autonomy.

The association repeats that in order to avoid these two scenarios, there is still the option of getting closer to our Pacific neighbors (see without France – APROFED ; Integrating the Australian Commonwealth? – APROFED ) which could be combined with that of emancipation (see Another path to decolonization: emancipation? – APROFED )

The APROFED association