French President Emmanuel Macron has a lot to manage. The European elections are fast approaching and his party is expected to lose. There are the frenzied preparations for the Paris Olympic Games. A manhunt is underway to find a convict whose audacity and death jailbreak shocked the country.
The last place many expected Mr. Macron to be was on a plane in one of the French Pacific territories, where riots have broken out all week. But there he was, arriving in New Caledonia on Thursday accompanied by three ministers, on a mission of healing and listening in a territory where many hold him personally responsible for the unrest.
“I come here with the determination to work to restore peace, with great respect and humility,” he declared upon his arrival.
The riots were sparked by the prospect of a vote last week in the National Assembly in Paris to extend voting rights in the territory. Many members of the local indigenous population fear the law will hamper the long process towards independence.
Mr Macron planned to meet local officials and civil society activists, to thank the police and begin a round of dialogue before quickly getting back on a plane and returning more than 16,000 kilometers to mainland France.
The trip, in many ways, is a Macron classic. He believes that any disagreement, no matter how heated, can be resolved through personal dialogue with him. But given local distrust of the government, many believe his trip is not only short-lived, but lacking in insight.
“He has a responsibility in this problem,” said Jean-François Merle, a New Caledonia expert at the Jean Jaurès Foundation who advised former Prime Minister Michel Rocard during delicate peace negotiations in the region in the 1990s. 1980. “I’m not sure there are political commitments to dialogue, from all sides.”
Riots broke out New Caledoniaa tiny archipelago of around 270,000 inhabitants, last week, leading to the worst violence in decades: six dead, many injured and around 400 businesses damaged, many by arson.
From the heights of Paris, French authorities declared a emergency state in the region and sent hundreds of police officers to try to restore peace. On Wednesday, Mr Macron said from New Caledonia that security forces would remain “as long as necessary” but that the state of emergency “should not be extended”.
“This trip comes far too late,” said Martial Foucault, a political science professor who heads the department of French overseas territories at Sciences Po in Paris. “No one expected Macron to go there.”
The discontent dates back to 2021, when Mr Macron insisted on holding the territory’s third independence referendum despite calls from leaders of the indigenous Kanak community to delay the vote due to the coronavirus pandemic. Many communities have been ravaged by the virus and local customs prohibit political activity during mourning.
Ultimately, Kanak leaders called for a boycott of the vote. They have since refused to accept the results, including 97 percent of voters wanted the territory to remain part of France, but only 44 percent of the population voted. Previous referendums showed much higher turnout and resulted in pro-France results of 57 percent and 53 percent.
Mr. Macron and his government considered the vote final, closing the long debate over independence. He also highlighted the role of the French presence in the Indo-Pacific region as a bulwark against China’s growing influence.
It was unclear whether pro-independence activists would meet Mr Macron during his short visit this week. Many refused to meet the French Interior Minister in February; a videoconference with him last week was canceled “for lack of willing participants”, according to Agence France-Presse.
New Caledonia was colonized by the French in 1853 as a penal colony, with an explicit policy aimed at turning indigenous populations into a minority, said Benoît Trépied, an anthropologist at France’s National Center for Scientific Research who specializes in New Caledonia. -Caledonia.
After tensions and violence between independence activists and loyalists in the 1980s peaked deadly hostage takinga peace agreement called the Matignon Accords is signed.
This agreement, along with the Nouméa Accords that followed, gradually ceded much political power to the Kanak community, formally recognized its culture and customs, and held a three-way referendum on independence.
As the new century dawned, the independence referendum vote was postponed for another two decades. French authorities agreed to freeze the electoral rolls so that new arrivals to New Caledonia, seen as more likely to support the French regime, could not influence the vote.
For pro-independence forces, the vote in Parliament last week to expand voting rights threatened a delicate balance by offering people who have lived in New Caledonia for more than 10 years the right to vote in the upcoming provincial elections.
The French government says the bill constitutes an essential solution to the democratic process. Local Kanak leaders see this as removing protection intended to prevent them from becoming an even smaller minority in their own territory.
Mr. Macron can talk as much as he wants, Mr. Trépied said, but without a commitment to retain the new law and prepare for a new referendum, he did not anticipate that any Kanak leader would listen to him. “The political amnesia of Macron and his political movement is irresponsible,” he said.
The government was not confronted with social protest movements typical of France or even related to the the riots that broke out across the country last summer, Mr. Trépied added: “He is facing a people who are fighting for their decolonization and who will never, ever back down. »
