2023-09-24 10:56:33
She was the only member of the government to present herself. This Sunday, the Secretary of State for Citizenship Sonia Backès (Renaissance) was not elected senator, three months after announcing her candidacy in New Caledonia last June, by 307 votes against 246. She failed to win one of the two seats promised to this territory, which went, at the end of the second round, to the independentist Robert Xowie. Also president of the southern province of the archipelago, Sonia Backès stood on the non-independence side.
Third in the first round in which the dissident Les Républicains candidate Georges Naturel was elected, Sonia Backès did not manage to attract many electors in the second round, losing to the candidate of the Kanak Liberation Front (FLNKS), who thus enters the Senate.
However, she had warned that in the event of victory she would not take office following this election. “As long as I am Secretary of State, he will be my deputy [Gil Brial, NDLR.] who will sit in the Senate,” she assured the press when formalizing her candidacy. “The day I am no longer Secretary of State, I will have to choose,” she continued.
She retained the presidency of the southern province
Sonia Backès entered the government on July 4, 2022, retaining her position as president of the southern province, contrary to the custom which requires a minister to resign from local executive functions when called to government.
However, this tradition was not always respected. Sébastien Lecornu, member of the government, was at the same time president of the general council of Eure, a position from which he finally resigned at the end of 2022. He was also elected senator in 2020 but let his deputy sit in his place.
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