“Emmanuel Macron must now listen to the Kanaks” | EUROtoday

Lhe method France manages the violence in New Caledonia won’t solely have an effect on its status within the archipelago, but in addition all through the Pacific and Indo-Pacific area. The clashes danger resulting in a tragic return to the state of affairs earlier than the peace agreements, with the bloodshed that we skilled within the Nineteen Eighties.

The wounds stay deep. If these agreements had been a hit, it’s specifically as a result of the French State, the loyalists and the separatists consistently agreed to compromises. Their confidence in these agreements, which they thought-about as a possible path in the direction of self-determination, allowed the French state to prepare three referendums between 2018 and 2021. The first two had been impeccable, with 56.7% and 56.7% respectively. 53.3% of votes against independence.

But, through the third vote, in 2021, the French state failed: it maintained the voting date with out taking into consideration the indigenous inhabitants's requests for postponement. At the time, Covid-19 had triggered a number of hundred deaths among the many Kanaks. Their leaders defined that the lengthy funeral ceremonies prevented campaigning and going to the polls. Faced with the Kanak boycott, the loyalists gained 96.5% of the votes, a Pyrrhic victory.

Since then, the division has solely gotten worse. On the one hand, the loyalists insist that the vote was authorized and intend to cement the place of the archipelago inside France. On the opposite hand, independence teams reject this third referendum and need one other to be organized. When, in July 2023, Emmanuel Macron, on web site, provided a “path of forgiveness” to beat the previous, the separatists didn’t come to take heed to him.

Deep misery of the brand new technology

The French president then threatened to behave unilaterally till native stakeholders reached an settlement. In December 2023, casual discussions befell between a number of events from every camp, revealing deep variations, together with on the electoral physique.

The Kanak demonstrations degenerated into violent clashes the day when, in Paris, the National Assembly examined the constitutional revision mission to broaden the citizens unilaterally within the absence of an settlement earlier than June. The scale of the destruction perpetrated by Kanak youth is an indication, not just for France and the loyalists it straight focused, but in addition for Kanak leaders in addition to neighboring nations, of the deep misery of this new technology, left behind.

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