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Created in January 2024, the APROFED association aims to promote federalism in New Caledonia as a third way and possible alternative to the choice offered to Caledonians for 40 years, namely for or against independence.
This progress is all the more necessary since the status quo inherited from this dichotomy has had no other effect than to keep the country’s economic and social situation on life support , placing it with import rates of 85% in the agricultural sector, 90% in the manufactured products sector (excluding Nickel) and more than 60% in terms of skilled labor, in a deliberate situation of strong dependence on the mainland , thus putting its future in jeopardy if it were to choose a path other than remaining within France.
The context :
When France took possession of “New Caledonia” on September 24, 1853 , it appropriated, as stipulated in the preamble to the Noumea Accords 1 , a territory that was not empty . It had been inhabited for nearly 3,000 years by men and women who are now called “Kanaks” . The shock of colonization constituted a lasting trauma for them. Deprived of their lands, massacred and then displaced en masse to be herded into indigenous reserves, the Kanaks saw their social organization disrupted. Pushed to the geographical, economic and political margins of their own countries , great suffering resurfaced. Men and women lost their lives or their reasons for living in this confrontation. Although estimated at more than 80,000 individuals when discovered by Captain Cook, in 1921 the Kanaks numbered only 15,621 people 2 .
The situation nevertheless seemed to improve after the Second World War . Several reforms were adopted both in New Caledonia and in the other colonies of the French Empire, leading for example to the abolition of the Native Code and thus the granting of freedom of movement again, the end of forced labor, the extension of citizenship to former natives and therefore access to the right to vote, etc.
In 1953, the Kanaks even created a political movement , arising from two socio-confessional associations, the UICALO 3 (Catholic) and the AICLF 4 (Protestant), called the Caledonian Union (UC) , which in 1959 brought together half of its members 5 , Europeans, wanting more equality but also freedom of management of New Caledonia, which became an Overseas Territory (TOM) in 1946, in the face of an omnipresent French State. From then on, the term autonomy appeared.
Management autonomy that the French State will grant to its former overseas colonies on June 23, 1956, with the “DEFFERRE” framework law.
Together, Kanaks and Europeans will lead the country’s institutions for more than 20 years, such as the General Council, which later became the Territorial Assembly (legislative power), as well as the Government Council (executive power).
The arrival in power of General De Gaulle in mainland France marked a turning point . Indeed, the Gaullist government implemented a policy of recentralization in response to demands for independence from its colonies .
The French government thus adopted, on December 21, 1963, the “Jacquinot” law which buried decentralization and considerably reduced the powers of the territorial executive. On January 3, 1969, with the “Billotte” laws, the State regained control of mining research, making it a priority. Thus, the “Jacquinot” and “Billotte” laws symbolize the return to centralization. They strengthen the powers of the State and its representative on the Territory . The government council now has only a consultative role. The local assembly sees almost all authority removed . From 1957 to 1969, we moved from centralization to management of territorial affairs by the territory (autonomy) to return in 1969 to management of affairs by France (return of centralization).
While no demands for independence have yet emerged in New Caledonia, these laws, perceived as betrayals of the French State and General De Gaulle , will change everything.
In July 1975, the Kanak Liberation Party (Palika) was created . This political movement campaigning for independence resulted from the merger of two far-left groups founded in the aftermath of May 1968, the “Red Scarves” and the “1878 Group.” It was one of the first political groups created whose official goal was independence. Its positions were radical, calling for emancipation through struggle.
On November 22, 1977, the UC, during its political congress held in the commune of Bourail, also adopted the independence line, causing the departure of the majority of Europeans, who still maintained the autonomist line .
In 1984, the UC participated in the creation of the Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front (FLNKS) , a political movement whose name recalls that used by the Algerians in their struggle for independence.
In 1981, the election of the socialist president François Mitterrand raised hopes among the independence supporters, who believed that he would grant them the much-desired object of their demands, like their neighbor Vanuatu, which became independent in 1980. This “mad hope,” as Maurice Lenormand 6 called it , is all the more surprising given that in 1954, François Mitterrand, then center-left Minister of the Interior, proclaimed concerning another colony, Algeria: “Algeria is France, and France will not recognize any authority in its territory other than its own.” 7
Rather than independence, the French State is proposing a new status for New Caledonia .
This umpteenth disillusionment or unfulfilled “promise” 8 will lead in 1984 to the period called: “the events” described by some as a civil war and the desire for the independentists to acquire their sovereignty that France unfortunately refused them otherwise than by arms . The conflict which extended until 1988 made, according to a partial assessment published by the High Commission of the French Republic in New Caledonia, nearly 50 buildings and permanent houses burned, 100 huts burned, 200 stores destroyed, 2 or 3 helicopters shot down, nearly 5 billion CFP francs of damage, several villages destroyed or abandoned, 2,500 to 3,000 refugees in Noumea having often lost everything and above all nearly 80 dead, 150 to 250 seriously injured and 25 rapes, according to the count made by the historian Bernard Brou. 9
Two peace agreements will close this sad chapter that some believe could have been avoided. In 1988, Kanaks and non-Kanaks accepted the Matignon peace agreements ratified by France, then those of Noumea, 10 years later , demonstrating the desire to turn the page on violence, find peace and work together.
But the Kanaks did not say that they were giving up on independence . On the contrary, in 2024, 40 years after the tragic period of the “events”, it would seem that the two peace agreements were at most a parenthesis, once again sending back to back the colonized people and France , which still has no desire to give independence to New Caledonia which could, by domino effect, lead the last remnants of the French empire to want to emancipate themselves in turn 10 11 . The 3rd referendum, for or against independence, held in New Caledonia in 2021 and boycotted by half of the population, the Kanaks, announcing that they would not “respect the result”, demonstrated that the withdrawal from the Noumea Accords took place against the backdrop of a breakdown in dialogue between the State and the separatists 12 . This break once again jeopardizes the fragile peace between the communities of the Territory, perhaps bringing us […] to the beginnings of new revolts 13 , notably for the year 2024, as Luc Tournabien suggests, in his work published in 2023 entitled: “Kanaky New Caledonia, 40 years of emancipation … to better recolonize” .
Our goal:
Faced with this situation, the APROFED association therefore sought to find a solution .
It was in the Anglo-Saxon world that the association found the solution, namely: federalism.
Federalism turns out to be not a solution, but the solution, if not the only solution, which allows us to bring together all the visions proposed to date by the different political components concerning the institutional future of New Caledonia.
This notion of federalism makes it possible to combine both “national unity” and “cultural diversity” in a country made up of several distinct ethnic, linguistic, religious, etc. groups.
This concept of “ unity in diversity ” has even become the motto of several nations 14 or supra-nations such as the European Union which, although the latter has a so-called “sui generis” (specific) status, strongly resembles one of the different forms of federalism, which is the confederation.
Today, there are 28 states, 15 of which have opted for federalism at the global level, bringing together nearly 40% of the world’s population, including 6 in Europe, 7 in America, 8 in Africa, 5 in Asia and 2 in the Pacific, namely Australia and Micronesia.
Still in the Pacific, the status of New Caledonia or even French Polynesia tends to qualify France for some already as a federal state 16 .
Many nations have adopted this notion of federalism during their decolonization processes. This is particularly the case for states that are called “new countries” such as the United States (at the origin of the concept of federalism in the modern sense), Canada, Australia, Brazil, etc., which are also the countries with the highest GDP per capita today . 5 of these federal states are even among the top 10 of the world’s leading economic powers. 4 of them are also part of the G8 , a club that annually brings together the heads of state or government of the most industrialized countries in the world.
This is why the APROFED association is campaigning today for the adoption of federalism in New Caledonia and the de facto creation of a Caledonian federated state in order to put an end to the current status quo and move forward with a new joint project between Kanaks and non-Kanaks.
3 Union des Indigènes Calédoniens Amis de la Liberté dans l’Ordre
4 Association des Indigènes Calédoniens et Loyaltiens Français
8 BROU Bernard, 2002, Nos lendemains chanteront-ils? La Nouvelle-Calédonie de 1957 à 1999, 335p – cf.p128 – la lettre de “promesse”.
9 Idem – cf p.296 to 299.
10 As was the case with Vietnam and the loss of all the French colonies in Asia or even Guinea in the case of those in Africa.
11 New Caledonia […] is a lock . We must fight at the UN. We are determined to stay there because it is the lock of Overseas France… Bernard Pons, Minister of Overseas France, 1986
12 UN Group of Experts for the referendum consultation of December 12, 2021 in New Caledonia, Mission Report, January 2022
13 Every century since it was taken possession of New Caledonia has experienced an armed revolt by the first people: 1878 in the 19th century, then 1917 and 1984 in the 20th century.
14 Motto adopted in South Africa, Indonesia and Papua New Guinea