After the surprise announcement of the French National Assembly’s dissolution last Sunday, French Pacific territories are already busy preparing for the forthcoming snap election with varying expectations.

Following the decision by President Emmanuel Macron, the snap general election will be held on June 30 (first round) and July 7 (second round).

Unsurprisingly, most of the incumbent MPs for the French Pacific have announced they will run again. Here is a summary of prospects:

New Caledonia
In New Caledonia, which has been gripped by ongoing civil unrest since violence broke out on May 13, the incumbents are pro-France Philippe Dunoyer and Nicolas Metzdorf, both affiliated to Macron’s Renaissance party, but also opponents on the local scene, marked by strong divisions within the pro-France camp.

Hours after the surprise dissolution, they both announced they would run, even though the campaign, locally, was going to be “complicated” with a backdrop of insurrectional roadblocks from the pro-independence movement.

Dunoyer said it was the “worst time for an election campaign”.

“It’s almost indecent to call [New] Caledonians to the polls at this time, because this campaign is not the priority at all,” he said.

“Not to mention the curfew still in place which will make political rallies very complicated.

“Political campaigns are always contributing to exacerbating tensions. [President Macron’s call for snap elections] just shows he did not care about New Caledonia when he decided this,” he said.

Dunoyer told NC la 1ère television on Monday he was running again “because for a very long time, I have been advocating for the need of a consensus between pro-independence and anti-independence parties so that we can exit the Nouméa Accord in a climate of peace, respect of each other’s beliefs”.

On the local scene, Dunoyer belongs to the moderate pro-French Calédonie Ensemble, whereas Metzdorf’s political camp (Les Loyalistes) is perceived as more radical.

“The radicalism on both parts has led us to a situation of civil war and it is now urgent to put an end to this . . .  by restoring dialogue to reach a consensus and a global agreement,” he said.

Dunoyer believes “a peaceful way is still possible because many [New] Caledonians aspire to living together”.

On the pro-independence side, leaders of the FLNKS (Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front) platform have also been swift to indicate they intend to field pro-independence candidates so that “we can increase our political representation” at the [French] national level.

The FLNKS is holding its convention this Saturday, when the umbrella group is expected to make further announcements regarding its campaign strategy and its nominees.

French Polynesia
In French Polynesia, since the previous general elections in 2022, the three seats at the National Assembly were taken — for the first time ever — by members of the pro-independence Tavini Huiraatira, which is also running the local government since the Tahitian general election of May 2023.

The incumbents are Steve Chailloux, Tematai Legayic and Mereana Reid-Arbelot.

The Tavini has held several meetings behind closed doors to fine-tune its strategy and designate its three fielded candidates.

But the snap election is also perceived as an opportunity for the local, pro-France (locally known as “autonomists”) opposition, to return and overcome its current divisions.

Since Sunday, several meetings have been held at party levels between the components of the pro-France side.

Former President and Tapura party leader Edouard Fritch told local media that at this stage all parties at least recognised the need to unite, but no agreement had emerged as yet.

He said his party was intending to field “young” candidates and that the most effective line-up would be that all four pro-French parties unite and win all three constituencies seats for French Polynesia.

“A search for unity requires a lot of effort and compromises . . .  But a three-party, a two-party platform is no longer a platform; we need all four parties to get together,” Fritch said, adding that his party was ready to “share” and only field its candidate in only one of the three constituencies.

Pro-France A Here ia Porinetia President Nicole Sanquer told local media “we must find a way of preserving each party’s values”, saying she was not sure the desired “autonomist” platform could emerge.

Wallis and Futuna
In Wallis and Futuna, there is only one seat, which was held by Mikaele Seo, affiliated to French President Macron’s Renaissance party.

He has not indicated as yet whether he intends to run again at the forthcoming French snap general election, although there is a strong likelihood he will.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

A former New Caledonia-based High Commissioner, Patrice Faure, has been appointed Chief-of-Staff of French President Emmanuel Macron.

Faure is described as an expert on French overseas territories, particularly New Caledonia.

The 56-year-old prefect was France’s representative (High Commissioner) in New Caledonia between 2021 and 2023, a period marked by the covid pandemic, but also the last two of three referendums held over the French Pacific territory’s possible independence.

He was also tasked to organise the first attempts to bring together pro-France and pro-independence political parties to talk and make suggestions on New Caledonia’s political and institutional future.

Faure was replaced in Nouméa by Louis Le Franc in early 2023.

French daily Le Monde suggests that Faure’s appointment would enable French President Macron to have a close adviser on New Caledonia’s developments in the coming months.

While French Home Affairs and Overseas minister Gérald Darmanin has travelled half a dozen times to New Caledonia throughout 2023, France’s efforts to foster bipartisan and simultaneous talks have not yet come to fruition.

UC refuses to join talks
One political party wjich is a member of the pro-independence umbrella (FLNKS) — the Union Calédonienne (UC) — is still refusing to join those talks.

French PM Elisabeth Borne gave New Caledonia’s political parties until 1 July 2024 to come up with collective suggestions on the sensitive subject.

Borne also announced over Christmas that her government would table a Constitutional amendment to “unfreeze” New Caledonia’s electoral roll and enable French citizen residing there for over 10 years to vote in local elections.

While Darmanin is scheduled to come back to New Caledonia early in the year, Finance Minister Bruno Lemaire will also visit again to supervise a far-reaching reform plan to solve New Caledonia’s “critical” situation in the nickel mining industry.

In February 2024, Justice Minister Eric Dupond-Moretti will also travel there to provide more details about the construction of a new French-funded prison at an estimated cost of €498 million (NZ$873 million).

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

In a historic first visit to an independent Pacific state by a sitting French president, President Emmanuel Macron has denounced a “new imperialism” in the region during a stop in Vanuatu, warning of a threat to the sovereignty of smaller states.

But, earlier, during a two-day stop in France’s colonial outpost, Kanaky New Caledonia, he refused to entertain demands by indigenous Kanak leaders to hold a new referendum on independence.

“There is in the Indo-Pacific and particularly in Oceania a new imperialism appearing, and a power logic that is threatening the sovereignty of several states — the smallest, often the most fragile,” he said in a speech in the Vanuatu capital Port Vila on July 27.

“Our Indo-Pacific strategy is above all to defend through partnerships the independence and sovereignty of all states in the region that are ready to work with us,” he added, conveniently ignoring the fact that France still has “colonies” in the Pacific (Oceania) that they refuse to let go.

Some 1.6 million French citizens live across seven overseas territories (colonies), including New Caledonia, French Polynesia (Tahiti), and the smaller Pacific atolls of Wallis and Futuna.

This gives them an exclusive economic zone spanning nine million sq km.

Macron uses this fact to claim that France is part of the region even though his country is more than 16,000 km from New Caledonia and Tahiti.

An ‘alternative’ offer
As the US and its allies seek to counter China’s growing influence in the region, France offered an “alternative”, claiming they have plans for expanded aid and development to confront natural catastrophes.

The French annexed New Caledonia in 1853, reserving the territory initially as a penal colony.

Indigenous Kanaks have lived in the islands for more than 3000 years, and the French uprooted them from the land and used them as forced labour in new French plantations and construction sites.

Tahiti’s islands were occupied by migrating Polynesians around 500 BC, and in 1832 the French took over the islands. In 1946 it became an overseas territory of the French Republic.

China is gaining influence in the region with its development aid packages designed to address climate change, empowerment of grassroots communities, and promotion of trade, especially in the fisheries sector, under Chinese President Xi Jinping’s new Global Development Initiative.

After neglecting the region for decades, the West has begun to woo the Pacific countries lately, especially after they were alarmed by a defence cooperation deal signed between China and Solomon Islands in April 2022, which the West suspect is a first step towards Beijing establishing a naval base in the Pacific.

In December 2020, there was a similar alarm, especially in Australia, when China offered a $200 million deal to Papua New Guinea to establish a fisheries harbour and a processing factory to supply fisheries products to China’s seafood market, which is the world’s largest.

Hysterical reactions in Australia
It created hysterical reactions in the Australian media and political circles in Canberra, claiming China was planning to build a naval base 200 km from Australia’s shores.

A stream of Western leaders has visited the region since then while publicly claiming to help the small island nations in their development needs, but at the same time, arm-twisting local leaders to sign defence deals for their navies, in particular to gain access to Pacific harbours and military facilities.

While President Macron was on a five-day visit to New Caledonia, Vanuatu and PNG, US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken and Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin were in Tonga and PNG, respectively, negotiating secret military deals.

At the same time, Macron made the comments of a new imperialism in the Pacific.

Defence Secretary Austin was at pains to explain to sceptical journalists in PNG that the US was not seeking a permanent base in the Pacific Islands nation. It has been reported in the PNG media that the US was seeking access to PNG military bases under the pretext of training PNG forces for humanitarian operations in the Pacific.

Papua New Guinea and the US signed a defence cooperation agreement in May that sets a framework for the US to refurbish PNG ports and airports for military and civilian use. The text of the agreement shows that it allows the staging of US forces and equipment in PNG and covers the Lombrum Naval Base, which Australia and US are developing.

There have been protests over this deal in PNG, and the opposition has threatened to challenge some provisions of it legally.

China’s ‘problematic behavior’
Blinken, who was making the first visit to Tonga by a US Secretary of State, was there to open a new US embassy in the capital Nuku’alofa on July 26. At the event, he spoke about China’s “problematic behavior” in the Pacific and warned about “predatory economic activities and also investments” from China, which he claimed was undermining “good governance and promote corruption”.

Tonga is believed to be heavily indebted to China, but Tongan Prime Minister Siaosi Sovaleni later said at a press conference that Tonga had started to pay down its debt this year and had no concerns about its relationship with China.

Pacific leaders have repeatedly emphasised that they would welcome assistance from richer countries to confront the impact of climatic change in the region, but they do not want the region to be militarised and get embroiled in a geopolitical battle between the US and China.

This was stated bluntly by Fiji’s Defence Minister at the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore last year. Other Pacific leaders have repeated this at various forums since then.

Though the Western media reports about these visits to the Pacific by Western leaders as attempts to protect a “rules-based order” in the region, many in the Pacific media are sceptical about this argument.

Fiji-based Island Business news magazine, in a report from the New Caledonian capital Noumea, pointed out how Macron ignored Kanaks’ demands for independence instead of promoting a new deal.

President Macron has said in Noumea that “New Caledonia is French because it has chosen to remain French” after three referendums on self-determination there. In a lengthy speech, he has spoken of building a new political status in New Caledonia through a “path of apology and a path of the future”.

Macron’s pledges ring hollow
As IB reported, Macron’s pledges of repentance and partnership rang hollow for many indigenous Kanak and other independence supporters.

In central Noumea, trade unionists and independence supporters rallied, flying the flag of Kanaky and displaying banners criticising the president’s visit, and as IB noted, the speech was “a clear determination to push through reforms that will advantage France’s colonial power in the Pacific”.

Predominantly French, conservative New Caledonian citizens have called for the electoral register to be opened to some 40,000 French citizens who are resident there, and Macron has promised to consider that at a meeting of stakeholders in Paris in September.

Kanaky leaders fiercely oppose it, and they boycotted the third referendum on independence in December 2022, where the “No” vote won on a “landslide” which Macron claims is a verdict in favour of French rule there.

Kanaks boycotted the referendum (which they were favoured to win) because the French government refused to accept a one-year mourning period for covid-19 deaths among the Kanaks.

Kanaky independence movement workers’ union USTKE’s president Andre Forest told IB: “The electorate must remain as is because it affects citizens of this country. It’s this very notion of citizenship that we want to retain.”

Independence activists and negotiator Victor Tutugoro said: “I’m one of many people who were chased from our home. The collective memory of this loss continues to affect how people react, and this profoundly underlies their rejection of changes to the electorate.”

‘Prickly contentious issues’
In an editorial on the eve of Macron’s visit to Papua New Guinea, the PNG Post-Courier newspaper sarcastically asked why “the serene beauty of our part of the globe is coming under intense scrutiny, and everyone wants a piece of Pasifica in their GPS system?”

“Macron is not coming to sip French wine on a deserted island in the middle of the Pacific,” noted the Post-Courier. “France still has colonies in the Pacific which have been prickly contentious issues at the UN, especially on decolonisation of Tahiti and New Caledonia.

“France also used the Pacific for its nuclear testing until the 90s, most prominently at Moruroa, which had angered many Pacific Island nations.”

Noting that the Chinese are subtle and making the Western allies have itchy feet, the Post-Courier argued that these visits were taking the geopolitics of the Pacific to the next level.

“Sooner or later, PNG can expect Air Force One to be hovering around PNG skies,” it said.

China’s Global Times, referring to President Macron’s “new colonialism” comments, said it was “improper and ridiculous” to put China in the same seat as the “hegemonic US”.

“Macron wants to convince regional countries that France is not an outsider but part of the region, as France has overseas territories there,” Cui Hongjian, director of the Department of European Studies at the China Institute of International Studies told Global Times.

“But the validity of France’s status in the region is, in fact, thin, as its territories there were obtained through colonialism, which is difficult for Macron to rationalise.”

“This is why he avoids talking about it further and turns to another method of attacking other countries to help France build a positive image in the region.”

Meanwhile, during his visit to the 7th Melanesia Arts and Cultural Festival in Port Vila, four chiefs from the disputed islands of Matthew and Hunter, about 190 km from New Caledonia, handed over to the French President what they called a “peaceful demand” for independence. IDN-InDepthNews

Ravindra Singh Prasad is a correspondent of InDepth News (IDN), the flagship agency of the International Press Syndicate. This article is republished with permission.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

In a historic first visit to an independent Pacific state by a sitting French president, President Emmanuel Macron has denounced a “new imperialism” in the region during a stop in Vanuatu, warning of a threat to the sovereignty of smaller states.

But, earlier, during a two-day stop in France’s colonial outpost, Kanaky New Caledonia, he refused to entertain demands by indigenous Kanak leaders to hold a new referendum on independence.

“There is in the Indo-Pacific and particularly in Oceania a new imperialism appearing, and a power logic that is threatening the sovereignty of several states — the smallest, often the most fragile,” he said in a speech in the Vanuatu capital Port Vila on July 27.

“Our Indo-Pacific strategy is above all to defend through partnerships the independence and sovereignty of all states in the region that are ready to work with us,” he added, conveniently ignoring the fact that France still has “colonies” in the Pacific (Oceania) that they refuse to let go.

Some 1.6 million French citizens live across seven overseas territories (colonies), including New Caledonia, French Polynesia (Tahiti), and the smaller Pacific atolls of Wallis and Futuna.

This gives them an exclusive economic zone spanning nine million sq km.

Macron uses this fact to claim that France is part of the region even though his country is more than 16,000 km from New Caledonia and Tahiti.

An ‘alternative’ offer
As the US and its allies seek to counter China’s growing influence in the region, France offered an “alternative”, claiming they have plans for expanded aid and development to confront natural catastrophes.

The French annexed New Caledonia in 1853, reserving the territory initially as a penal colony.

Indigenous Kanaks have lived in the islands for more than 3000 years, and the French uprooted them from the land and used them as forced labour in new French plantations and construction sites.

Tahiti’s islands were occupied by migrating Polynesians around 500 BC, and in 1832 the French took over the islands. In 1946 it became an overseas territory of the French Republic.

China is gaining influence in the region with its development aid packages designed to address climate change, empowerment of grassroots communities, and promotion of trade, especially in the fisheries sector, under Chinese President Xi Jinping’s new Global Development Initiative.

After neglecting the region for decades, the West has begun to woo the Pacific countries lately, especially after they were alarmed by a defence cooperation deal signed between China and Solomon Islands in April 2022, which the West suspect is a first step towards Beijing establishing a naval base in the Pacific.

In December 2020, there was a similar alarm, especially in Australia, when China offered a $200 million deal to Papua New Guinea to establish a fisheries harbour and a processing factory to supply fisheries products to China’s seafood market, which is the world’s largest.

Hysterical reactions in Australia
It created hysterical reactions in the Australian media and political circles in Canberra, claiming China was planning to build a naval base 200 km from Australia’s shores.

A stream of Western leaders has visited the region since then while publicly claiming to help the small island nations in their development needs, but at the same time, arm-twisting local leaders to sign defence deals for their navies, in particular to gain access to Pacific harbours and military facilities.

While President Macron was on a five-day visit to New Caledonia, Vanuatu and PNG, US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken and Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin were in Tonga and PNG, respectively, negotiating secret military deals.

At the same time, Macron made the comments of a new imperialism in the Pacific.

Defence Secretary Austin was at pains to explain to sceptical journalists in PNG that the US was not seeking a permanent base in the Pacific Islands nation. It has been reported in the PNG media that the US was seeking access to PNG military bases under the pretext of training PNG forces for humanitarian operations in the Pacific.

Papua New Guinea and the US signed a defence cooperation agreement in May that sets a framework for the US to refurbish PNG ports and airports for military and civilian use. The text of the agreement shows that it allows the staging of US forces and equipment in PNG and covers the Lombrum Naval Base, which Australia and US are developing.

There have been protests over this deal in PNG, and the opposition has threatened to challenge some provisions of it legally.

China’s ‘problematic behavior’
Blinken, who was making the first visit to Tonga by a US Secretary of State, was there to open a new US embassy in the capital Nuku’alofa on July 26. At the event, he spoke about China’s “problematic behavior” in the Pacific and warned about “predatory economic activities and also investments” from China, which he claimed was undermining “good governance and promote corruption”.

Tonga is believed to be heavily indebted to China, but Tongan Prime Minister Siaosi Sovaleni later said at a press conference that Tonga had started to pay down its debt this year and had no concerns about its relationship with China.

Pacific leaders have repeatedly emphasised that they would welcome assistance from richer countries to confront the impact of climatic change in the region, but they do not want the region to be militarised and get embroiled in a geopolitical battle between the US and China.

This was stated bluntly by Fiji’s Defence Minister at the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore last year. Other Pacific leaders have repeated this at various forums since then.

Though the Western media reports about these visits to the Pacific by Western leaders as attempts to protect a “rules-based order” in the region, many in the Pacific media are sceptical about this argument.

Fiji-based Island Business news magazine, in a report from the New Caledonian capital Noumea, pointed out how Macron ignored Kanaks’ demands for independence instead of promoting a new deal.

President Macron has said in Noumea that “New Caledonia is French because it has chosen to remain French” after three referendums on self-determination there. In a lengthy speech, he has spoken of building a new political status in New Caledonia through a “path of apology and a path of the future”.

Macron’s pledges ring hollow
As IB reported, Macron’s pledges of repentance and partnership rang hollow for many indigenous Kanak and other independence supporters.

In central Noumea, trade unionists and independence supporters rallied, flying the flag of Kanaky and displaying banners criticising the president’s visit, and as IB noted, the speech was “a clear determination to push through reforms that will advantage France’s colonial power in the Pacific”.

Predominantly French, conservative New Caledonian citizens have called for the electoral register to be opened to some 40,000 French citizens who are resident there, and Macron has promised to consider that at a meeting of stakeholders in Paris in September.

Kanaky leaders fiercely oppose it, and they boycotted the third referendum on independence in December 2022, where the “No” vote won on a “landslide” which Macron claims is a verdict in favour of French rule there.

Kanaks boycotted the referendum (which they were favoured to win) because the French government refused to accept a one-year mourning period for covid-19 deaths among the Kanaks.

Kanaky independence movement workers’ union USTKE’s president Andre Forest told IB: “The electorate must remain as is because it affects citizens of this country. It’s this very notion of citizenship that we want to retain.”

Independence activists and negotiator Victor Tutugoro said: “I’m one of many people who were chased from our home. The collective memory of this loss continues to affect how people react, and this profoundly underlies their rejection of changes to the electorate.”

‘Prickly contentious issues’
In an editorial on the eve of Macron’s visit to Papua New Guinea, the PNG Post-Courier newspaper sarcastically asked why “the serene beauty of our part of the globe is coming under intense scrutiny, and everyone wants a piece of Pasifica in their GPS system?”

“Macron is not coming to sip French wine on a deserted island in the middle of the Pacific,” noted the Post-Courier. “France still has colonies in the Pacific which have been prickly contentious issues at the UN, especially on decolonisation of Tahiti and New Caledonia.

“France also used the Pacific for its nuclear testing until the 90s, most prominently at Moruroa, which had angered many Pacific Island nations.”

Noting that the Chinese are subtle and making the Western allies have itchy feet, the Post-Courier argued that these visits were taking the geopolitics of the Pacific to the next level.

“Sooner or later, PNG can expect Air Force One to be hovering around PNG skies,” it said.

China’s Global Times, referring to President Macron’s “new colonialism” comments, said it was “improper and ridiculous” to put China in the same seat as the “hegemonic US”.

“Macron wants to convince regional countries that France is not an outsider but part of the region, as France has overseas territories there,” Cui Hongjian, director of the Department of European Studies at the China Institute of International Studies told Global Times.

“But the validity of France’s status in the region is, in fact, thin, as its territories there were obtained through colonialism, which is difficult for Macron to rationalise.”

“This is why he avoids talking about it further and turns to another method of attacking other countries to help France build a positive image in the region.”

Meanwhile, during his visit to the 7th Melanesia Arts and Cultural Festival in Port Vila, four chiefs from the disputed islands of Matthew and Hunter, about 190 km from New Caledonia, handed over to the French President what they called a “peaceful demand” for independence. IDN-InDepthNews

Ravindra Singh Prasad is a correspondent of InDepth News (IDN), the flagship agency of the International Press Syndicate. This article is republished with permission.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

France has deployed Rafale jet fighters during a military ceremony in New Caledonia, marking President Emmanuel Macron’s first official day in the Pacific.

Macron arrived in Noumea overnight on a visit aimed at bolstering his Indo-Pacific strategy and reaffirming France’s role in the region.

The historic five-day trip includes a visit to Vanuatu and Papua New Guinea. It is the first time a French president has visited independent Pacific Islands, according to French officials.

A big focus will be asserting France’s role in what Macron has called a “balancing force” between the United States and China.

France assumes sovereignty for three Pacific territories: New Caledonia, French Polynesia and Wallis and Futuna.

However, not everyone was happy about the presidential visit.

New Caledonia was politically divided and seeking a way forward after three referendums on independence.

Referendum boycott
The outcome of all three polls was a “no” to independence but the result of the third vote, which was boycotted by Kanaks, was disputed.

Rallies were expected during the French President’s visit.

Local committees of the main pro-independence party the Caledonian Union have called for “peaceful” but determined rallies.

Their presence will be felt particularly when Macron heads north today to the east coast town of Thio, as well as when he gathers the New Caledonian community together tomorrow afternoon for a speech, where he is expected to make a major announcement.

About 40 percent of the population are indigenous Kanak, most of whom support independence. Pro-independence parties, which have been in power since 2017, want full sovereignty by 2025.

Macron is expected to meet with all sides in Noumea this week.

A large delegation has joined Macron on his visit, including Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna and Defence Minister Sébastien Lecornu.

Foreign minister in Suva
Colonna will also travel to Suva, Fiji today, the first visit of a French foreign affairs minister to the country.

She will meet with the Fijian Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka and the Pacific Islands Forum Deputy Secretary General Filimon Manoni.

The move was to “strengthen its commitment in the region”, French officials have said.

Meetings have also been set with Papua New Guinea Prime Minister James Marape when the delegation travels there on Friday.

France has investments in PNG to develop its gas resources under French-owned multinational oil and gas company TotalEnergies.

Vanuatu chiefs appeal
Emmanuel Macron will be in Port Vila on Wednesday.

Vanuatu’s Malvatumauri National Council of Chiefs want Prime Minister Ishmael Kalsakau to let President Macron know that the Mathew and Hunter Islands belong to Vanuatu and are not part of New Caledonia.

Tanna chief Jean Pierre Tom said ni-Vanuatu people were expecting his visit to be a “game changer and not a re-enforcement of colonial rule”.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

En vol vers la Nouvelle-Calédonie, accueilli par nos Rafale qui viennent confirmer que la France est une puissance de l’Indo-Pacifique ! pic.twitter.com/yj8r1PHOMi

— Emmanuel Macron (@EmmanuelMacron) July 24, 2023

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

French President Emmanuel Macron will make a first official visit to Papua New Guinea next Friday as part of a short Pacific trip.

AFP news agency reports that Macron’s trip will start in New Caledonia before he travels to Vanuatu and Port Moresby.

A French official told the news agency the trip was “historic” because no French president had ever visited non-French islands in the region.

Macron will use those two stops to outline his Indo-Pacific strategy, aimed at “recommitting” France to the region, the official said.

PNG Prime Minister James Marape said he would meet one-on-one with Macron, and the itinerary for the visit also included a courtesy call on Governor-General Sir Bob Dadae and the signing of various agreements.

Marape emphasised the significance of Macron’s visit in strengthening bilateral relations between France and Papua New Guinea.

“Under my leadership, France and PNG have been actively enhancing our bilateral relationship, along with other nations,” he said on his website.

“I appreciate President Macron’s commitment, as demonstrated by his decision to visit PNG and engage in discussions on matters of mutual interest between our countries.”

Final LNG decision
Macron’s visit comes on the eve of the final investment decision (FID) by French super-major TotalEnergies on the Papua LNG Project.

TotalEnergies is also involved in downstream processing of natural resources such as forests.

“In the midst of the evolving geopolitical landscape in the region, Papua New Guinea serves as ‘neutral ground,’ and I will urge France to consider PNG’s strategic position amid the changing regional dynamics,” Marape added.

“The visit of President Macron to PNG will further solidify the growing cooperation and shared goals between our two nations, particularly in the areas of forest conservation, French investments in PNG such as TotalEnergies, mobilising resources to support small Pacific Island countries and communities, and other relevant matters.”

Macron last year relaunched France’s Indo-Pacific approach in the aftermath of a bitter row over a cancelled submarine contract with Australia, casting France as a balancing power in a region dominated by the tussle between China and the United States.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

New Caledonian Joe Xulue has made history by becoming the first person of Kanak heritage to graduate from Harvard University in the United States.

During his graduation in Boston on June 6, he proudly wore the Kanak flag as he received a diploma in law — and photos of the moment have since gone viral, celebrated by fellow Kanaks across social media.

Xulue said his accomplishment is collective because it sets an example to fellow Kanaks.

“It’s a win for all Kanak people,” said Xulue.

“I see it as a service — a way of giving back to my community — even by just going to Harvard . . . it can mean a lot to a young Kanak kid who is unsure of the dreams and aspirations that they have about themselves,

“When I was up there holding the flag, despite alot of the things that my people have gone through because of colonisation, it felt so proud to showcase how much we can achieve.

“Getting to Harvard wasn’t easy, I’ve had to go through more rejection than acceptance to get to where I am today.”

An avid New Caledonia pro-independence supporter, Xulue said his and other Kanak successes contributes to the indigenous movement for self-determination.

“It’s pretty clear that colonisation has dis-enfranchised so many of our people,” said Xulue.

“Young Kanaks like me are trying to change the narrative — to effectively reverse years and years of colonial rule, and policy guidelines and directions that have left us in a poor state.”

The French territory has seen recent political turbulence, with pro-independence supporters disputing a referendum in 2021 that rejected independence from France.

Political dissatisfaction is widespread among the Kanak people who inherit a history marred by war and oppression. The majority of native Kanaks, who make up over 41 percent of New Caledonia’s population, support independence.

Xulue is one of them, and he said getting a Harvard degree is one way of improving the socio-political condition of Kanaks.

“This idea of a neocolonial territory to exist in a world where we are supposed to be allowing countries to have independence is disconcerting,” he said.

“I find it so strange that a country like France will talk about equality and freedom for all, but won’t guarantee it to a nation like New Caledonia where they can clearly see the effects of colonisation on an indigenous group.

“On one hand, the French government talks about freedom and rights, but they don’t guarantee them to people who inherently deserve those rights.”

Harvard is a vehicle for change
Before going to Harvard, Xulue completed a law degree at Auckland University — a hub for Pasifika academics.

He applied to Harvard after being encouraged to do so by others including Samoan Harvard graduate Dylan Asafo.

A key focus of his study was creating cultural spaces to improve justice systems.

“My application was based on the idea of using indigenous ideas and practices, to shape the more traditional legal structures that we have in New Zealand,” said Xulue.

“That was the basis for why I wanted to study and I knew it would give a platform to the Kanak struggle for independence.

“We see alot of the ways that different tikanga practices are in the New Zealand justice systems . . . we see how changing the settings like allowing for the kaumatua to get involved or allowing for the marae for youth justice processes can occur . . . simple ways we can use indigenous knowledge within the current colonial hegemony.”

“I look at the law as a tool to effect positive change for our people . . . I think that’s what Harvard saw and why they accepted me into their university.”

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

New Caledonia’s Kanak national liberation movement has told the UN Decolonisation Committee that France has “robbed” the indigenous people of their independence and has appealed for help.

Magalie Tingal-Lémé, the permanent representative of the Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front (FLNKS) at the UN, told a session of the Committee of 24 (C24) — as the special decolonisation body is known — that the French authorities had failed to honour the 1998 Noumea Accord self-determination aspirations, especially by pressing ahead with the third independence referendum in December 2021 in defiance of Kanak opposition.

More than half the eligible voting population boycotted the third ballot after the previous two referendums in 2018 and 2020 recorded narrowing defeats for independence.

The pro-independence Kanak groups wanted the referendum delayed due to the devastating impact that the covid-19 pandemic had had on the indigenous population.

Tingal-Lémé told the UN session that speaking as an indigenous Kanak woman, she represented the FLNKS and “every time we speak before your institution, we carry the voice of the colonised people”.

“When we speak of colonisation, we are necessarily speaking of the people who have suffered the damage, the stigma and the consequences,” she said in her passionate speech.

“On September 24, my country will have been under colonial rule for 170 years.”

Accords brought peace
Tingal-Lémé said two political accords with France had brought peace to New Caledonia after the turbulent 1980s, “the second of which — the Nouméa Accord — [was taking] the country on the way for full emancipation”.

“And it is in a spirit of dialogue and consensus that the indepéndentists have kept their word, despite, and in the name, of spilled blood.”

In 2018, the first of three scheduled votes on sovereignty, 56.4 percent rejected independence with an 81 percent turnout of the 174,995 voters eligible to vote.

Two years later, independence was again rejected, but this time with an increased support to almost 47 percent. Turnout also slightly grew to 85.69 percent.

However, in December 2021 the turnout dropped by about half with most Kanaks boycotting the referendum due to the pandemic. Unsurprisingly, this time the “yes” vote dropped to a mere 3.5 percent.

“Since December 12, 2021, when France maintained the third and final referendum — even though we had requested its postponement due to the human trauma of covid-19 — we have never ceased to contest its holding and its results,” Tingal-Lémé said.

Nearly 57 percent of voters had not turned out on the day due to the covid boycott.

‘We’ll never accept this outcome’
“We believe that through this illegitimate referendum, the French state has robbed us of our independence. We will never accept this outcome!

“And so, unable to contest the results under French internal law, we are turning to the international community for an impartial institution to indicate how to resume a process that complies with international rules on decolonisation.

“Through the Nouméa Accord, France has committed itself and the populations concerned to an original decolonisation process, which should lead to the full emancipation of Kanaky.

“Today, the FLNKS believes that the administering power has not fulfilled its obligations.”

Tingal-Lémé said the “latest evidence” of this failure was a New Caledonian decolonisation audit, whose report had just been made public.

She said this audit report had been requested by the FLNKS for the past five years so that it would be available — along with the assessment of the Nouméa Accord — before the three referendums to “enlighten voters”.

“The pro-independence movement found itself alone in raising public awareness of the positive stakes of self-determination, and had to campaign against a state that sided with the anti-independence groups.”

Magalie Tingal-Lémé’s speech to the UN Decolonisation Committee. Video: MTL

Entrusted to a ‘market’ firm
Also, the French government had “entrusted” this work to a firm specialising in market analysis strategies, she said.

“This shows how much consideration the administering power has given to this exercise and to its international obligations regarding the decolonisation.

“Frankly, who can believe in the objectivity of an audit commissioned by a government to which the leader of New Caledonia’s non-independence movement belongs?” Tingal-Lémé asked.

“It is already clear that, once again, France does not wish to achieve a decolonisation in the Pacific.

“This is why the FLNKS is petitioning the C24 to support our initiative to the United Nations, with the aim of getting an advisory opinion to the International Court of Justice.

“The objectives of this initiative is to request the ICJ to rule on our [indigenous] rights, those of the colonised people of New Caledonia, which we believe were violated on December 12, 2021.”

Advisory opinion
The FLNKS wanted the ICJ to make an advisory opinion on the way France “has conducted the decolonisation process, in particular by holding a referendum without the participation of the Kanak people.”

Tingal-Lémé pleaded: “We sincerely hope that you will heed our call.”

According to New Caledonia’s 2019 census, the indigenous Kanaks comprise a 41 percent share of the 271,000 multiethnic population. Europeans make up 24 percent, Wallisians and Futunans 8 percent, and a mix of Indonesians, ni-Vanuatu, Tahitians and Vietnamese are among the rest.

Earlier today, RNZ Pacific reported that a New Caledonian politician had claimed at the UN that the territory was “no longer a colony” and should be withdrawn from the UN decolonisation list.

The anti-independence member of the Territorial Congress and Vice-President of the Southern Province, Gil Brial, said he was a descendant of French people deported to New Caledonia 160 years ago, who had been “blended with others, including the indigenous Kanaks”.

He said the only colonisation left today was the “colonisation of the minds of young people by a few separatist leaders who mixed racism, hatred and threats”, reports RNZ Pacific.

Dr David Robie is editor of Asia Pacific Report.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

French Polynesia’s new President Moetai Brotherson is in Paris for wide-ranging talks with the French government and the organisers of the 2024 Paris Summer Olympics.

His visit involves meetings with a range of ministers and officials to continue cooperation arrangements initiated by his predecessor.

“I’m not here to come begging,” Brotherson said, adding that he wanted to ensure that France was helping to decrease dependence on French financial transfers by developing French Polynesia as a country with its own resources.

He told the news site Outremers360 that he wants any process of self-determination to be arbitrated by the United Nations.

Restating a timeframe of up to 15 years until a referendum on independence, Brotherson said that it was not utopian.

“[French] Polynesia is as big as Europe, and in terms of population, it is [the size of] Montpellier”, he said, referring to the southern French city with its 300,000 inhabitants.

He said time needed to be taken to prepare, and by seeking independence “we will be able to take decisions with full responsibility”.

By contrast, he said the preceding pro-autonomy governments had the reflex to say that in the end, if they did not make the right decisions, they would turn to “mother” France.

Support for seabed mining ban
Brotherson met the State Secretary for the Sea Herve Berville who reconfirmed the French government’s support for a seabed mining ban.

Berville also reconfirmed that such a ban would also apply to French Polynesian waters.

Brotherson again expressed his unwavering support for next year’s Olympic surfing competition to be held in Tahiti.

After flooding in the area last month, French Polynesian Sports Minister Nahema Temarii cast doubt on Tahiti being able to go ahead with the competition.

However, the site manager of the Paris Olympics organising committee, as well as Brotherson, said the event would go ahead as planned.

After becoming President last month, Brotherson will this week officially relinquish his seat in the French National Assembly, to which he was re-elected last year when his pro-independence Tavini Huira’atira for the first time won all three available Paris seats.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

New Caledonia’s pro-independence FLNKS (Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front)  says the advice of the International Court of Justice is being sought over the contested 2021 referendum on independence from France.

The movement — represented by Roch Wamytan, who is President of New Caledonia’s Congress — told a UN Decolonisation Committee meeting in Bali, Indonesia, that it considered holding the vote violated the Kanaks’ right in their quest for self-determination.

New Caledonia has been on the UN decolonisation list since 1986, and under the terms of the Noumea Accord three referendums on restoring New Caledonia’s full sovereignty were held between 2018 and 2021.

The date for the last one was set by Paris but because of the impact of the covid-19 pandemic on the Kanak population, the pro-independence parties asked for the vote to be postponed.

The French government refused to agree to the plea and as a consequence, the pro-independence parties boycotted the poll in protest.

The FLNKS told the Bali meeting that the final referendum went ahead “under pressure from the French state with more than 2000 soldiers deployed and under a hateful and degrading campaign against the Kanaks”.

A total of 57 percent of registered voters stayed away, almost halving the turnout over the preceding referendum in 2020.

Among those who voted, more than 96 percent rejected independence, up from 56 percent the year before.

In view of the low turnout, the FLNKS stated “it is inconceivable that one can consider that a minority determines the future of New Caledonia”.

‘Legal and binding’, says France
However, the French government insists that the vote was legal and binding, being backed by a French court decision which last year threw out a complaint by the customary Kanak Senate, calling for the result to be annulled.

The court found that neither constitutional provisions nor the organic law made the validity of the vote conditional on a minimum turnout.

It added that the year-long mourning declared by the Kanak customary Senate in September 2021 was not such as to affect the sincerity of the vote.

The court also noted that by the time of the referendum on December 12, more than 77 percent of the population was vaccinated.

The anti-independence parties in New Caledonia also consider the referendum outcome as the legitimate outcome despite only a tiny minority of the indigenous Kanak population having voted.

The FLNKS has been pleading for international support to uphold the rights of the indigenous people and in its campaign to have the last referendum annulled.

The Melanesian Spearhead Group said in 2021 that the referendum should not be recognised but the chair of the Pacific Islands Forum Mark Brown, of Cook Islands, did not back the move when asked about it this month, saying the Forum would not “intrude into the domestic matters of countries”.

‘French law has failed the Kanaks’
The statement by the FLNKS to the Bali meeting said that “international bodies are our last resort to safeguard our rights as a colonised people”, adding that French domestic law has failed to give the Kanaks such protection.

It pleaded for the UN Decolonisation Committee to support the FLNKS in its case at the International Court of Justice.

The FLNKS said the ICJ was established with one of the principal purposes of the United Nations, which is to maintain, by peaceful means and in accordance with international law, peace and security.

It also said he would like to get support for an official request so that the FLNKS can get observer status at the United Nations.

A Kanak leader, Julien Boanemoi, told the gathering the decolonisation process in New Caledonia was at risk of “backtracking”, alleging that France was engaged in a modern version of colonisation.

He said with the French proclamation of the “Indo-Pacific axis”, the Kanak people felt a repeat of the French behaviour of 1946 and 1963 when Paris withdrew the territory from the decolonisation list and stifled the pro-independence Caledonian Union.

Boanemoi said with the lack of neutrality of the administering power France, he wanted to warn the Decolonisation Committee of “the risks of jeopardising stability and peace in New Caledonia”.

Darmanin back in Noumea
On Wednesday, French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin is due in New Caledonia for talks on a new statute for the territory.

Central to his talks with the FLNKS on Friday will be discussions about the roll used for provincial elections.

Darmanin signalled in March that the restricted roll would be opened to more voters, which the FLNKS regards as unacceptable.

Last month, the president of the Caledonian Union, which is the main party within the FLNKS, said there was a risk of there being no more provincial elections if the rolls changed.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

The president of New Caledonia’s largest pro-independence party Daniel Goa will not be prosecuted for alleged calls for violence and sedition.

Last month, a coalition of anti-independence parties had lodged a formal complaint with the Public Prosecutor over a speech given by Goa at a party meeting.

Goa had said there was a risk of there being no more provincial elections if the restricted rolls were opened to people who arrived after the signing of the 1998 Noumea Accord.

The anti-independence coalition had also accused Goa of sedition after he said his party might turn to foreign powers.

After questioning Goa, the Prosecutor decided there were insufficient grounds to lay charges.

The anti-independence parties want Paris to abolish the restrictions by changing the French Constitution and granting voting rights to the estimated 40,000 migrants who have settled since the Accord signing.

In March, French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said the 2024 provincial elections would not go ahead with the restricted rolls.

Earlier this month, another Caledonian Union politician Gilbert Tyuienon warned that dialogue would end should Goa be taken to court for expressing what the party membership felt.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

New Caledonia’s largest pro-independence party says the latest French pronouncement on self-determination is an insult to the decolonisation process.

Amid a dispute over the validity of the referendum process under the Noumea Accord, French Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin told the United Nations last week that self-determination might take “one or two generations”.

The Caledonian Union said the statement contradicted the 1998 Noumea Accord which was to conclude after 20 years with New Caledonia’s full emancipation.

However, three referendums on independence from France between 2018 and 2021 to complete the Accord resulted in the rejection of full sovereignty.

But the Caledonian Union says the trajectory set out in the Noumea Accord has not changed and the process must conclude with New Caledonia attaining full sovereignty.

In a statement, the party has accused France of being contradictory by defending peoples’ right to self-determination at the UN while not respecting the colonised Kanak people’s request and imposing the 2021 referendum.

The date was set by Paris but because of the impact of the covid-19 pandemic on the indigenous Kanak population, the pro-independence parties asked for the vote to be postponed.

The French government refused to accede to the plea and as a consequence the pro-independence parties stayed away from the poll in protest.

Although more than 96 percent voted against full sovereignty, the turnout was 43 percent, with record abstention among Kanaks at the centre of the decolonisation issue.

Pro-independence parties therefore refuse to recognise the result as a legitimate outcome of the decolonisation process.

They insist that the vote is not valid despite France’s highest administrative court finding the referendum was legal and binding.

Darmanin due back in Noumea
The latest meeting of the Caledonian Union’s leadership this week was to prepare for next week’s talks with Darmanin, who is due in Noumea for a second time in three months.

Paris wants to advance discussions on a new statute after the referendums.

In its statement, the Caledonian Union said it wanted France to specify what its policies for New Caledonia would be, adding that for the party, they had to be in line with the provisions of the Noumea Accord.

The party said fresh talk of self-determination should not be a pretext of France to divert from the commitments in the Accord.

It also said it would not yet enter into formal discussions with the anti-independence parties about the way forward although they also were Noumea Accord signatories.

The party also said it would not discuss the make-up of New Caledonia’s electoral rolls until after a path to full sovereignty had been drawn up in bilateral talks with the French government.

On La Premiere television on Sunday night, Congress President Roch Wamytan, who is a Noumea Accord signatory and a Caledonian Union member, said his side had a different timetable than Paris.

While the French government was focused on next year’s provincial elections, Wamytan said it was not possible to discuss in the space of a month or two the future of a country or of a people that had been colonised.

He also wondered if Darmanin was serious when he said it could take two generations, or 50 years, for self-determination.

Wamytan said after the failed 2021 referendum, the two sides had diametrically opposed positions.

However, he hoped at some point a common platform could be found so that in the coming months a way would be found as a “win-win for New Caledonia”.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

French Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin has invited the United Nations Decolonisation Committee members to visit New Caledonia.

Controlled by France since 1853, New Caledonia was returned to the UN decolonisation list as prolonged political violence threatened in 1986 — 39 years after France had withdrawn it and its other major Pacific colony from the 19th century, French Polynesia, from the list.

France says it has complied with the UN decolonisation process and regularly exchanged with the UN about New Caledonia.

During a visit to the United States last week, Darmanin stopped at the UN in New York to discuss the aftermath of the three referendums on independence which France organised in New Caledonia between 2018 and 2021.

Darmanin, who as Interior Minister is also responsible for France’s overseas possessions, said he had a constructive exchange, without elaborating.

He said, however, he wondered how “to trigger this right to self-determination on the scale of one or two generations”.

Darmanin also told the committee that after the referendums, France was trying to negotiate with both the pro- and anti-independence camps to formulate a future status for New Caledonia.

What next for New Caledonia?
The outcome of the referendum process as outlined in the 1998 Noumea Accord is in dispute, with the pro-independence parties claiming the rejection of independence is illegitimate because of the low turn-out of the colonised Kanak people in the last vote.

France had gone ahead with the third referendum despite a plea by pro-independence parties to postpone it because of the impact of the covid-19 pandemic on the Kanak population.

The pro-independence side refuses to recognise the result, saying that the referendum was not in the spirit of the 1998 Noumea Accord and the UN resolutions on the territory’s decolonisation.

It said the path of dialogue had been broken by the stubbornness of the French government, which was unable to reconcile its geostrategic interests in the Pacific with its obligation to decolonise New Caledonia.

The pro-independence camp has been lobbying for support to get the referendum outcome annulled.

However, a legal challenge in Paris last year by the customary Kanak Senate was unsuccessful while a further challenge of the referendum result filed with the International Court of Justice is pending.

New PIF chair taking ‘neutral’ position
This month, the Pacific Islands Forum said it would “not intrude” into New Caledonia’s affairs although a subgroup, the Melanesian Spearhead Group, had earlier backed calls for the UN to declare the result null and void.

Asked for the Forum’s view, its chair, Cook Islands Prime Minister Mark Brown, said the “Forum respects the due process of each country”.

“It is not the Forum’s role to intrude into the domestic matters of countries as they determine their independence or their dependence on other countries,” Brown said.

The pro-independence side has refused to engage with the anti-independence side in discussions about any new statute. Instead, it has insisted on having bilateral talks with only the French government on a timetable to conclude the decolonisation process and restore New Caledonia’s sovereignty.

In March, Darmanin visited New Caledonia for talks with a cross-section of society, and last month New Caledonia’s political leaders were in Paris for more discussions.

None of these meetings have yielded a consensus on a way forward.

Audition cet après-midi à l’@ONU_fr par le C24, comité des Nations Unies en charge des sujets de décolonisation, afin de faire le point sur la Nouvelle-Calédonie.
Merci à la présidente du comité et aux pays membres pour cet échange riche et constructif. Au nom du Gouvernement,… pic.twitter.com/Ya5BY1k9Kc

— Gérald DARMANIN (@GDarmanin) May 19, 2023

Next week, Darmanin is due back in Noumea in a renewed effort to advance discussions on New Caledonia’s future status.

The anti-independence parties want Paris to honour the referendum result and move towards reintegration of New Caledonia into France by abolishing the restricted rolls created with the Noumea Accord.

The push received support last week from the deputy leader of France’s Republicans François Xavier Bellamy who visited Noumea.

He said his side would support changes to the French constitution to allow for the rolls to be opened up — a move firmly resisted by the pro-independence side.

French Polynesia marks 10th reinscription anniversary

The ruling pro-independence Tavini Huira’atira party in French Polynesia marked the 10th anniversary of the territory’s reinscription in Faa’a where the party founder and leader Oscar Temaru is mayor.

His decades-long campaign succeeded in 2013 when the UN General Assembly approved a resolution — sponsored by Solomon Islands — and re-inscribed French Polynesia on the world body’s decolonisation list.

The decision, which came in the dying days of the last government led by Temaru, was vehemently criticised by the Tahitian government, which succeeded his, as well as France, which labelled the UN decision an “interference”.

While France has refused to attend any UN discussion on French Polynesia, the pro-autonomy government of the past decade regularly sent delegates to the annual gathering in New York.

Marking the anniversary this year, Tavini’s youngest assembly member Tematai Le Gayic told Tahiti Nui TV he was disappointed that the “French state agrees to negotiate when there is bloodshed”, referring to New Caledonia’s unrest of the 1980s.

“But when it’s with respect of law and democracy, France denies the process,” he added.

The opposition Tapura’s Tepuaraurii Teriitahi said that it would be good “if France accepted once and for all, to avoid any controversy, that UN observers could come to French Polynesia”.

While viewing independence as a long-term goal, the newly elected President Moetai Brotherson has been critical of France shunning the UN process, having described it as a “bad look”.

At the event in Faa’a, Brotherson said they went to ask the UN “to give us the possibility of choice, with a neutral arbiter”.

He said it was then up to his party to awaken consciences so that an overwhelming majority would vote for independence, which he said was not an end in itself but an essential step to building a nation.

“We don’t want a 50 percent-plus-one-vote victory,” he said.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

French Polynesia’s anti-nuclear organisation Association 193 has criticised the latest French report about the impact of the France’s nuclear weapons tests.

France’s National Institute of Health and Medical Research evaluated additional declassified data from the tests at Moruroa Atoll and found that radiation from them had a “minimal” role in causing thyroid cancer.

The association’s president, Father Auguste Uebe-Carlson, told the AFP news agency there was a tendency by the French state and the institute to minimise the impact of the nuclear fallout.

He said the French Committee for the Compensation of Victims of Nuclear Tests refused to recognise the files of victims born after 1974, when the military carried out its last atmospheric test.

But Father Uebe-Carlson said there was an argument to also recognise cancer sufferers born since then.

According to Father Uebe-Carlson, the institute would one day have to explain why there were so many cancers in French Polynesia.

He has repeatedly accused France of refusing to recognise the impact of the tests, instead using “propaganda” to say they were clean or a “thing of the past”.

He said health problems were now being attributed to poor diet and lifestyle choices.

He said that three years ago he had carried out a survey in Mangareva, which is close to the former weapons test sites, and found that from 1966 onward all families reported cases of still-born babies.

Call for release of scientific data
The president of the test veterans’ organisation Moruroa e Tatou said the release of the scientific data was not enough.

Hiro Tefaarere told Polynésie 1ère TV that it was “absolutely necessary” for his organisation to get from the French state the register of the cancer patients and cancer deaths during the testing period.

He said it was “imperative” that these files be given to Moruroa e Tatou.

Tefaarere said this research, if the state agreed to release it, would give his organisation the essential elements to consolidate the complaints which have been filed

A Territorial Assembly member, Hinamoeura Cross, who suffers from leukemia, said she was outraged that reports were still being published that were downplaying the tests’ effects.

The new Tahitian president, Moetai Brotherson, said he would take the latest report into account when he entered into discussions with the French government.

French Polynesia had for years been trying to get France to reimburse it for the costs of cancer sufferers.

$1bn to treat radiation cancers
Its social security agency, CPS, said that since 1995 it had spent almost US$1 billion to treat 10,000 people suffering from cancer as the result of radiation from the tests.

In 2010, Paris recognised for the first time that the tests had had an impact on the environment and health, paving the way for compensation.

Between 1966 and 1996, France carried out almost 200 tests in the South Pacific, involving more than 100,000 military and civilian personnel.

Paris has refused to apologise for the tests, but President Emmanuel Macron said France owed “a debt” to the French Polynesian people.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Mā’ohi Nui and the Pacific region has witnessed a historical moment at the Territorial Assembly when Oscar Temaru, leader of the pro-independence party Tavini Huira’atira, sat briefly in the most important chair of the chamber.

He presided over the election of the new Speaker (president) of the House.

This honour was his as the eldest member of the Territorial Assembly at the age of 78.

In his return to the Assembly, he was put in the highest seat of the House from which he had been axed as a member of Parliament in 2018 by a French court which convicted him of a “conflict of interest” in the Radio Tefana affair.

A sweet revenge for the once persona non grata politician in front of the High Commissioner representative of the French administration, along with the two pro-French senators —  and the entire autonomist political platform.

Another no less significant moment that took place when the ballots for the electing the Speaker were counted, 41 were for the only pro-independence candidate, Antony Geros, against 16 that abstained.

This might have come as a surprise to the autonomist alliance of édouard Fritch-Gaston Flosse to see the three non-aligned autonomist members of the assembly give their votes instead of abstaining.

Working with new administration
However, those non-aligned autonomist members have publicly announced that they would work with the new administration.

The other point about the three non-aligned members is the hope of being offered a ministerial position for one of their group, an answer will come when the newly elected President of the territory presents his cabinet in five days.

In his opening speech, Speaker Geros reminded the House about historical facts over the many political battles and strife that Tavini had had to go endure — mostly instigated by the French state.

He also said that the past 10 years had been a “journey in the desert” for the new local government.

When asked whether he was worried that his speech against the French administration could send the “wrong signal” to Paris, he said the young new Tavini members of the Assembly needed to know how they got to where they were and the sacrifices that were made by the forefathers of the independence party.

They needed to know the past of their party to understand the future of the country.

It has also been a happy reunion for Roch Wamytan, president of New Caledonia’s Congress and pro-independence leader, who came in person to congratulate and support his old friend Temaru for what he has achieved.

Brotherson’s new administration
Moetai Brotherson was elected president of Mā’ohi Nui with 38 votes ahead of the outgoing president Édouard Fritch (16 votes), and Nicole Sanquer from the non-aligned party — and the first woman to seek the presidency — (three votes) and Benoit Kautai from Flosse’s party, who quickly withdrew his name.

The majority premium won by the Tavini settled the outcome as already predicted.

Any member of the Assembly can stand as a presidential candidate and present their programme. Undoubtedly the autonomist candidates will reiterate their allegiance to the French Republic.

Moetai Brotherson will make his speech and continue to form his cabinet. He has already given the names of some of the members of his cabinet and to those already known, the following names could be added to his new cabinet.

He promised gender parity in his government with a hint of more women which he can still achieve. He is adding another woman called Manarii Galenon, who is likely to be Minister for Solidarity, Housing and Urban Development.

The Budget and Finance minister would be Tevaiti Pomare which is an interesting choice as he is known to be an A here ia Porinetia supporter.

Some negotiations must have gone on between Tavini and the A here ia Porinetia.
The last name that we are hearing of is Cedric Mercadal as Health Minister.

Most of the new ministers are of high calibre in terms of academic achievement but might be rather light on their political engagement and experience.

President Brotherson will need to find two more women to reach gender parity and stay under the number of 10 ministers that he announced previously.

Although he has five days to form his government, we should know all the ministers by Monday.

Priorities for new government
The biggest challenge for this government and Tavini Huira’atira party as a whole will be to work with the French administration whose financial help to the country is around 200 billion Pacific francs (NZ$3 billion) a year.

Despite the long and historically skewed relationship between the independence party and the French state, open discussions with other potential investors, especially China, should not put any strain between the new local and the French administrations.

It has becoming increasingly necessary for this new government to be close to all the mayors of Mā’ohi Nui which is what the French administration had already put in place around 30 years ago.

This relationship between municipalities and the French state has allowed the latter to have a direct communication with the representatives of the populations, be their only intermediary and to set up agreements of inter-dependence between the parties involved.

The new government will try to seek this close relationship, particularly with the mayors of the Marquesas archipelago since it is planning to use those islands as an essential lever to boost tourism.

The Marquesas archipelago is only a three-hour flight to Hawai’i which welcomes 8 million tourists a year and the new government believes that by offering the Marquesas as a new tourist destination, it will boost both the local and the whole of Mā’ohi Nui’s economies.

Managing to bring in 3 percent of this new market in search of authenticity would be a substantial financial addition and would more than double the number of tourists visiting the territory year to around 300,000.

Infrastructure objective
In anticipation of this, building the necessary infrastructure — such as airport, wharves, parks, hotels — to welcome this potential tourist mass could only be achieved by working with the mayors.

On the other hand, the more pressing matter for this government will be to visit and help the town of Te’ahupo’o located on the west coast of the main island of Tahiti that was hit by torrential rain and flooding 10 days ago.

It left about 60 households desperate to find somewhere to live.

Te’ahupo’o is also the town where the 2024 Paris Olympic Games surfing competition will take place.

Tackling urban delinquency and homelessness around the capital Pape’ete is also part of the new administration’s programme which ties up with the warm welcome that Ma’ohi Nui wants to offer visiting tourists.

The last word is for Oscar Temaru about concerns that the independence party might face a repeat of 2004 and the “politics of intimidation”.

He says the French administration is witnessing an increase in popularity of Tavini Huira’atira and will think twice about trying to “shut the taps”.

Paris is also aware that all the political institutions in Ma’ohi Nui — the Assembly and the government — and in France (the three deputies seated in France’s National Assembly) have independence members to represent the people.

It is Temaru’s wish to also win the senatorial elections in order to strengthen his claim to self-determination.

His only worry is whether Paris might change the constitution during their governance. But at the moment, Ma’ohi Nui is allowing “the young people to govern this country”.

Ena Manuireva is an Aotearoa New Zealand-based Tahitian doctoral candidate at Auckland University of Technology and a commentator on French politics in Ma’ohi Nui and the Pacific. He contributes to Asia Pacific Report.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz