By Patrick Decloitre, RNZ Pacific correspondent French Pacific desk
French national politics have once again cast a shadow on New Caledonia’s issues even though the French Pacific territory is facing a pressing schedule.
Debates in the French National Assembly on a New Caledonia-related Bill were once again heated and rocky yesterday, resulting in further delays.
The fresh clashes resulted from a game of alliances, mostly French national left-wing parties siding with the pro-independence FLNKS of New Caledonia (Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front and the other side of the Lower House (mostly centre-right) siding with pro-France New Caledonian parties.
It is further evidence that French national partisan politics is now fully engaged on remote New Caledonia’s issues.
On the agenda in Paris was a Bill to postpone New Caledonia’s local provincial elections from the current schedule of not later than 30 November 2025 to the end of June 2026.
The purpose of the Bill (which was earlier approved in principle by New Caledonia’s local parliament, the Congress) was to allow more time for new negotiations to take place on a so-called Bougival agreement project, signed on July 12.
The Bougival process aims at turning New Caledonia into a “State” within the French State, as well as creating a New Caledonian “nationality”, also within the French realm.
It also envisaged transferring some French powers (such as foreign affairs) to New Caledonian authorities.
FLNKS rejected deal
But even though some 19 parties had originally signed the Bougival deal was signed, one of the main pro-independence parties — the FLNKS — has decided to reject the deal.
The FLNKS says their negotiators’ signatures was not valid because the text was a “lure of independence” and did not reflect the FLNKS’s conception of full sovereignty and short-term schedule.
The FLNKS is also clearly opposed to any postponement of New Caledonia’s provincial elections and wants the current schedule (not later than November 30) maintained.
The rest of New Caledonia’s parties, both pro-independence (such as moderate PALIKA -Kanak Liberation Party- and UPM -Progressist Union in Melanesia-) and those who want New Caledonia to remain part of France (such as Les Loyalistes, Rassemblement, Calédonie Ensemble), stuck to their signatures.
They have since held meetings and rallies to explain and defend the deal and its associated implementation process and steps to turn it into relevant pieces of legislation and constitutional amendments.
One of those pieces of legislation includes passing an organic bill to postpone the date of local elections.
The Upper House, the Senate, passed the Bill last week in relatively comfortable conditions.
But in a largely fragmented National Assembly (the Lower House), divided into far left (dominated by La France Insoumise -LFI-, centre left Socialists, centre-right — and influential far-right Rassemblement National, there is no majority.
A ‘barrage’ of amendments
Hours before the sitting began on Wednesday afternoon (Paris time), National Assembly President Yaël Braun-Pivet had to issue a statement deploring LFI’s tactics, amounting to “pure obstruction”.
This was because in a matter of a few hours, LFI, in support of FLNKS, had filed more than 1600 amendments to New Caledonia’s Bill (even though the text itself only contained three articles).
The barrage of amendments was clearly presented as a way of delaying debates since the sum of all of these amendments, if properly discussed, would have taken days, if not weeks, to examine.
In response, the government camp (a coalition of pro-President Macron MPs) resorted to a rarely-used technicality: it called for a vote to “kill” their own Bill and re-divert it to another route: a bipartisan committee.
This is made up of a panel of seven National Assembly MPs and seven Senators who will be tasked, next week, to come up with a consensual version and bring it back before the Lower House on October 27 for a possible vote and on October 29 before the Senate.
If both Houses of Parliament endorse the text, then it will have to be validated by the French Constitutional Council for conformity and eventually be promulgated before 2 November.
But if the Senate and the National Assembly produce different votes and fail to agree, then the French government can, as a last resort, ask the Lower House only to vote on the same text, with a required absolute majority.
If those most urgent deadlines are not met, then New Caledonia’s provincial elections will be held as scheduled, before November 30 and under the existing “frozen” electoral roll.
This is another very sensitive topic related to this Bill as it touches on the conditions of eligibility for New Caledonia’s local elections.
Under the current system, the 1998 Nouméa Accord, the list of eligible voters is restricted to people living and residing in New Caledonia before 1998. Whereas under the new arrangements, it would be “unfrozen” to include at least 12,000 more, to reflect, among others, New Caledonia’s demographic changes.
But pro-independence parties such as the FLNKS object to “unfreezing” the rules, saying this would further “dilute” the indigenous vote and gradually make them a minority in their own land.
‘Political response to political obstruction’
Pro-France MP Nicolas Metzdorf and Bill Law Commission Rapporteur Philippe Gosselin both said the tactical move was “a political response to (LFI’s) political obstruction”.
“LFI is barking up the wrong tree (…) Especially since the pro-independence movement is clearly divided on the matter (for or against the Bougival process),” Gosselin pleaded.
“It was necessary to file this rejection motion of our own text, because now it will go to the bipartisan committee to be examined once again. So we’re moving forward, step by step. I would like to remind you once again that (the Bill) is coherent with about eighty percent of our political groups represented at New Caledonia’s Congress”.
The “Prior rejection motion” was voted by a large majority of 257 votes (and the support of Rassemblement National, but without the Socialists) and the sitting was adjourned without further debates.
When debates resume, no amendment will be allowed.
Moutchou ‘open to discussion’
In spite of this, during debates on Wednesday, newly-appointed French Minister for Overseas Naïma Moutchou assured she remained open to discussion with the FLNKS so that it can re-join talks.
She admitted “nothing can be done without the FLNKS” and announced that she would travel to New Caledonia “very soon”.
During question time, she told the Lower House her mantra was to “build” on the Bougival text, to “listen” with “respect” to “give dialogue a chance” and “build New Caledonia’s future”.
“The signature of the Bougival deal has revived hope in New Caledonia’s population. It’s true not everyone is now around the table. (My government) wishes to bring back FLNKS. Like I said before, I don’t want to do (things) without the FLNKS, as long as FLNKS doesn’t want to do things without the other parties”, she said.
FLNKS chief negotiator at Bougival, Emmanuel Tjibaou and pro-France Metzdorf also had a brief, sometimes emotional exchange on the floor, Wednesday.
They both referred to their own respective interpretations of what took place in July 2025 in Bougival, a small city west of Paris.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
