The Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front (FLNKS), one of the main components in New Caledonia’s pro-independence Kanak movement, has confirmed it will not take part in a new round of talks in Paris this week called by French President Emmanuel Macron.
In mid-December 2025, Macron invited New Caledonia’s politicians back to the negotiating table in Paris on Friday, January 16.
In his letter, Macron wrote that the anuary 16 session came in the footsteps of the July 2025 talks that led to the signing of an agreement project since dubbed the Bougival Agreement.
Macron said the intent was to “pursue dialogue with every partner” in the form of a “progress report” aiming at “opening new political prospects” to allow the French government to then continue discussions.
The main perceived goal of the Paris meeting was to attempt one more time to involve the FLNKS in a form of resumed talks so as not to exclude any political stakeholder.
In July 2025, after 10 days of intense negotiations in the small town of Bougival (west of Paris), a text was signed by all of New Caledonia’s political parties.
The project agreement intended to pave the way for the creation of a “state of New Caledonia” within France and its correlated “New Caledonian nationality”, as well as the gradual transfer of more powers from France to its Pacific territory.
‘Lure’ of independence
But just a few days later, on 9 August 2025, FLNKS denounced the Bougival text, saying it was a “lure” of independence.
It therefore rejected it in block because it did not address its claims of short-term full sovereignty.
Part of their demands was that just the FLNKS, as New Caledonia’s “only legitimate liberation movement”, should be engaged with the French state and that the talks should aim at reaching a deal for a short-term full sovereignty — what they term a “Kanaky deal”.
Speaking at a media conference yesterday, FLNKS president Christian Téin confirmed there would be no delegation in Paris on behalf of his party.
“The [French] government is trying to lock us and all of New Caledonia’s players into the Bougival agreement. We cannot condone that,” he told local media, stressing once again a “forceful” approach.
He said solutions to the current deadlock should be found “not in Paris, but here in New Caledonia”.
Aiming for elections
“One of the main objectives of the FLNKS, the party said, was now to aim for as many seats as possible at the next two elections scheduled for 2026: the municipal poll and the crucial provincial elections, scheduled to take place no later than the end of June 2026.
“For us, this is a strategic lever so we can affirm our independence project” . . . “to send our message loud and clear to the whole of the country, to [mainland] France and at the international level,” FLNKS official Marie-Pierre Goyetche said.
New Caledonia’s other parties who signed the same Bougival document, both pro-independence and pro-France, all resolved to honour their signatures and to continue defending it and advocating for it with their respective supporters.
In the pro-independence camp, the “moderate” parties, including PALIKA (Kanak Liberation Party) and UPM (Progressist Union in Melanesia) who had split from the FLNKS, citing profound differences, later voiced some reservations and wished for more clarifications and possible amendments on the text.
This regarded, for instance, questions as to how the envisaged transfers of powers would legally materialise and translate.
Pro-French parties react
Reactions to the FLNKS’ latest announcement to snub the Paris talks were swift on Tuesday.
They mainly came from the pro-France camp, which finally resolved to respond to Macron’s invite.
“FLNKS won’t come and it was predictable . . . because an agreement is not in their interest”, said outspoken pro-France MP for New Caledonia Nicolas Metzdorf, who has been increasingly critical of France’s approach in relation to the FLNKS.
“FLNKS boycotts discussions in Paris. Unfortunately, this is no surprise,” said Rassemblement-Les Républicains (LR) leader Virginie Ruffenach.
She said it was now up to the French state to maintain the cycle of discussions “without giving in or going backwards”.
“There shouldn’t be a reward for empty chairs,” she said, adding that she saw the FLNKS boycott announcement as a “proof of irresponsibility”.
“Because New Caledonia is at the end of its tether and that, in this context, our responsibility is to go and finalise an agreement in Paris,” she said, in reference to New Caledonia’s dire economic situation.
‘Empty chair’ v ‘democracy’
“To accept that their absence should win over dialogue would be to admit that in the French Republic, boycott has more weight than votes, that an empty chair is worth more than democracy,” she wrote on social networks.
New Caledonia’s Finance Minister Christopher Gygès also commented on the recent announcement, saying: “It’s now time for this situation to cease. New Caledonia needs to move forward and rebuild itself.
“The [French state] cannot remain prisoner of postures. It needs to work with those who sincerely wish to move forward.”
Moderate pro-France Calédonie Ensemble party leader Philippe Dunoyer, who has been advocating for an inclusion of the FLNKS in future talks, said he was “disappointed” and “very surprised, in a negative way”.
“When there is no agreement, there are no prospects”, he told public broadcaster Nouvelle-Calédonie la 1ère.
Most of New Caledonia’s politicians are already on their way to Paris.
Agree to disagree on no agreement until 2027?
Since Macron’s invitation for fresh talks in Paris was issued, it was already met with reluctance from all sides across New Caledonia’s political chessboard.
Even on the pro-France side, the general feeling was that if fresh talks were meant to question the already fragile balances arrived at in Bougival, then they would be very wary.
“Because, you know, they were scared of fresh violence in New Caledonia because of a possible boycott from FLNKS,” Metzdorf said in December 2025.
“I think everyone is paralysed with fear.
“But I want to say it right now. If this new meeting wants to take us further than Bougival, it will be no.”
He said earlier in 2025, before Bougival, at a “conclave” held in New Caledonia with then-French Minister for Overseas Manuel Valls, his pro-France political camp had already rejected a previous proposal of New Caledonia as an associated state of France precisely because it would lead to independence.
“We did this once and we will reject all the same any form of independence association a second time.
“We will vote against, including in Parliament and there will be no agreement at all, until 2027.”
Presidential election 2027
France’s next presidential election is set down for 2027.
In a letter sent to Macron in December 2025, Metzdorf and other like-minded loyalist (pro-France) political groups responded to stress the same: “If the exchanges that you are proposing on next 16 January 2025 were to revisit the political equilibriums of the Bougival Agreement, then the Loyalists will simply not support it”.
FLNKS already had strong reservations when Macron’s invitation was issued.
It recalled its outright rejection of anything related to the Bougival document and said under the current circumstances, these kind of talks “does not allow to create the conditions of a sincere and useful dialogue”.
A delegation from the FLNKS, including its president Christian Téin, was also in Paris for one week in mid-December and sought an interview with Macron.
It was envisaged to request an appointment with Macron in order to “clarify the framework, the objectives and the method for a possible resumption of talks” and “go back on the right track”.
But the meeting did not eventuate.
New Caledonia’s recovery
New Caledonia was engulfed in civil unrest in May 2024, following a series of protests staged by a “Field Actions Coordinating Cell” set up a few months earlier by Union Calédonienne (UC), the main remaining component of FLNKS.
The ensuing riots, burning and looting led to the death of 14 people, more than 2 billion euros (NZ$4 billion) of damage, thousands left jobless and a drop of 13.5 percent in the French territory’s GDP.
During the Paris talks on Friday, a significant part is also scheduled to focus on New Caledonia’s economic recovery and French assistance.
In December, French Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu mooted a plan totalling more than 2 billion euros over a five-year period to help the French Pacific territory’s recovery.
But the plan would also involve, beyond five years, that France should cease funding areas and powers that had already been transferred to local authorities over the past 20 years, under the previous 1998 Nouméa autonomy Accord.
Meanwhile, the French assistance plans cannot yet be translated into actions: they largely depend on passing the 2026 appropriation (budget) Bill, which has not been endorsed yet by a divided French Parliament with no clear majority.
There is also a recurrent backdrop of no confidence motions and — this week again — the spectre of a possible dissolution of the National Assembly to try and solve the current deadlock.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz
