By Patrick Decloitre, RNZ Pacific correspondent French Pacific desk
New Overseas Minister Manuel Valls, who was appointed yesterday as part of the new French government of Prime Minister François Bayrou, intends to tackle New Caledonia’s numerous issues in the spirit of dialogue of former Socialist Prime Minister Michel Rocard.
Rocard is credited as the main French negotiator in talks between pro-France and pro-independence leaders that led in 1988 to the “Matignon-Oudinot” agreements that put an end to half a decade of quasi-civil war.
At the time 26 years old, Valls was a young adviser in Rocard’s team.
Valls said Rocard’s dialogue-based approach remained his “political DNA”.
36 years later, now 62, he told French national broadcasters France Inter and Outre-mer la Première that the two priorities were economic recovery (after destructive riots and damage in May 2024, estimated at some 2.2 billion Euros), as well as resuming political dialogue between local antagonistic parties concerning New Caledonia’s political future.
On the economic side, short-lived former Prime Minister Michel Barnier had committed up to one billion Euros in loans for New Caledonia’s recovery.
But France’s Parliament has not yet endorsed its 2025 budget, “which poses a number of problems regarding commitments made by (Barnier).
On the political talks that were expected to start a lead to a comprehensive and inclusive agreement between France, the pro-independence and pro-France camps, Valls said his approach was “dialogue” with the view of “going forward.”
“We don’t have much time (…) We have to find a common path”, he said, adding future political solutions should be “innovative” for the French Pacific archipelago.
Initial schedules for those talks to take place foresaw an agreement to arrive some time at the end of March 2025.
But no talks have started yet.
The Union Calédonienne (UC), one of the main components of the pro-independence Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front (FLNKS), said nothing could happen until it holds its annual congress, sometime during the “second half of January 2025”.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
