Kanaky-New Caledonia: After Manuel Valls' failure, Macron takes back control and announces new negotiations in June

A new stage for discussions on the future of Kanaky-New Caledonia . The Élysée Palace announced on Tuesday that it had invited all stakeholders "to come and work in Paris from mid-June, in order to clarify economic, political and institutional issues with a view to reaching a shared agreement on the future of the archipelago." This meeting looks very much like a last chance to reach an agreement on the future of the archipelago , while the anti-independence right rejected the text proposed at the beginning of May by the Minister of Overseas Territories , Manuel Valls, during a "conclave" in a hotel in Bourail, 160 km north of Noumea.

This draft agreement specifically provided for accession to full sovereignty, which was what everyone had signed in 1998 during the Noumea Accord. This could take the form of independence associated with a partnership with France. This was what the local right, led by former minister Sonia Backès and MP Nicolas Metzdorf, had refused, pointing to an "immediate transfer and delegation of sovereign powers" which was equivalent to "independence" . This full sovereignty is, however, written in black and white in the Noumea Accord, signed by their predecessors from the RPCR (Rally for Caledonia in the Republic), Jacques Lafleur and Pierre Frogier.

A year after the uprisings born out of the protest against the thawing of the electoral body , Kanaky-New Caledonia appears once again to be in a deadlock situation. For four months, between February and May of this year, Manuel Valls had the merit of bringing everyone around the table and proposing for the first time on behalf of the French State a project that would finally allow this accession to full sovereignty. Nicolas Metzdorf and Sonia Backès had openly criticized him, going so far as to make racist remarks by calling him "Manouel" .

It is now difficult to see what Emmanuel Macron, one of those directly responsible for the new political and social crisis in the archipelago since the sabotage of the last referendum in December 2021, will be able to initiate. For the separatists, who want to continue the dialogue and will go to Paris, "This project must be the basis of future discussions and negotiations, since it is indeed in the name of the State that Manuel Valls made his proposal," indicates Dominique Fochi, in charge of running the political bureau of the National Front for Kanak and Socialist Liberation. "In any case, the FLNKS will not go below this," he continued. The FLNKS will debate a common and official position this weekend at a convention.