New Caledonia | State within a state of France

The perseverance during the months of negotiations paid off. This weekend, representatives of the Paris government, the New Caledonian independence movement, and the organizations of the former French settlers there signed an "agreement" in Bougival, near Paris. Once the agreement is incorporated into the Constitution of the French Republic and approved by the local electorate, New Caledonia will become a "state within a state."

Several participants and French President Emmanuel Macron described the 13-page document as "historic." "A New Caledonian state within the Republic: This is a bet on trust," Macron declared. New Caledonia is now "opening a new chapter in its future in peaceful relations with France." Prime Minister François Bayrou also spoke of an agreement of "historic proportions."

All residents receive New Caledonian citizenship in addition to French citizenship. According to the principle of national self-determination, New Caledonia automatically receives full competence over international relations and can become a member of the UN. Upon a motion by the island council, which requires a three-fifths majority of the 56 deputies, the transfer of powers over defense, currency, internal security, and justice to France can be implemented.

A second agreement aims to stabilize the economy of New Caledonia, home to approximately 270,000 people. The "Economic and Financial Reconstruction Pact" is intended to ensure that New Caledonia, which has so far been dependent on transfer payments, can stand on its own two feet in the medium term. To achieve this, the main goal is to modernize nickel mining and make it profitable. New Caledonia has the world's second-largest deposits of this important raw material for steel refining.

New Caledonia is of great importance to France not only because of its rich natural resources. The archipelago, comprising several dozen islands 1,500 kilometers off Australia's northeast coast, allows Paris to play a geostrategic role in the Pacific region, given China's growing influence .

In order to implement the Bougival Agreement, it is to be incorporated into the Constitution of the French Republic in the autumn at a solemn session of the Congress, the joint session of both houses of Parliament in Versailles.

In February 2026, the residents of New Caledonia must give their consent in a referendum, and in March, municipal elections will be held there, as elsewhere in mainland France and the overseas territories. New Caledonia will have new electoral rolls, including the 12,000 residents who were excluded by government decree in 2009 because they had not lived here for ten years. The descendants of the indigenous people, who call themselves Kanaks, considered this discriminatory and feared that it would prevent them from gaining a majority in elections.

Discovered in 1774 by the British navigator and cartographer James Cook, the archipelago was taken over by Admiral Fabvrier-Despointes for France under Emperor Napoleon III in 1853. Until 1922, New Caledonia served as a notorious penal colony. Most of the inhabitants of European descent, about a third of the population, are descendants of prisoners and their guards, or of later settlers from France. The indigenous population was long oppressed by the colonial power.

With the Nouméa Agreement signed in the island territory's capital in 1998, Paris granted New Caledonia greater self-determination and promised a gradual transition to independence. However, referendums in 2018, 2020, and 2021 resulted in a majority in favor of the descendants of the settlers and against separation from France . This issue nevertheless continued to simmer and, in May 2024, triggered unrest in the overseas department, 20,000 kilometers from the mainland. The civil war-like clashes left 14 dead and several hundred injured. Since then, peace has only been superficially restored.

In the coming months, the main task of the leaders of the independence movement FLNKS (Front de Libération nationale kanak et socialiste), on the one hand, and the organizations of the descendants of the former colonial rulers and the continental French who have settled here over the centuries, on the other, will be to convince their base of the correctness of the compromise. Radical young supporters of the FLNKS, in particular, committed acts of violence during the unrest two years ago and in the period since.

Immediately after the signing of the agreement, there were critical and even negative voices on both sides, accusing their own representatives of having unnecessarily given up essential demands and interests.