Gérald Darmanin’s visit to New Caledonia at the beginning of December was the occasion for many promises. Starting with that of the separatists towards themselves: speaking with one voice to the Minister of the Interior and Overseas Territories during his next visit to the territory, scheduled for the time being from March 2 to 8.
So, for once, for several weeks now, the different movements that make up the Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front (FLNKS) have been preparing together for the February 25 congress. Because if the separatists have every interest in approaching the discussions on the future status of the Caillou under one and the same banner, the differences are numerous to imagine the continuation of the Nouméa agreement of 1998, which had transferred broad powers to the Caledonian government. .
Starting with the oldest and most glaring fracture, which sees the Kanak Liberation Party (Palika) advocating“independence with partnership”, while the Caledonian Union (UC) wants to negotiate from state to state, once the« IKS »socialist Kanak independence, obtained.
Meeting in a steering committee at the end of January, the UC has also posted an ambitious schedule: agreement with the State on September 24, 2023, “symbolic date of the 170 years of the colonization of the country”explains the president of the movement Daniel Goa, accession to full sovereignty in 2025 and creation in the wake of a constituent assembly.
Concessions, at the risk of division
At Palika, no calendar on the agenda: “We do not set a date in discussions with the State, assures the spokesman of the movement, Charles Washetine. We want to be pragmatic. What we don’t want is to leave this question to the new generation that is coming, so it has to be as soon as possible. We have been saying it for ten years, what we want is independence with partnership. There are skills that we are not able to assume, such as defense. We need to discuss, for France to look at how it can reconcile its interests with those of Caledonia. And we also want better integration in the region. »
The FLNKS congress will therefore be that of concessions, at the risk of division: “It is an absolute imperative for us not to go and discuss in dispersed mode”assures Gilbert Tyuienon, vice-president of the UC.
A unity that does not have the same meaning for the two parties: if, for the UC, the discussions will only be held bilaterally with the State alone, the Palika plans at the same time to integrate the working groups set up since the end of October, in Paris, by the Prime Minister, Elisabeth Borne, with the loyalist parties, but also representatives of the economic or customary world. Convention in which the Palika already wanted to participate before giving up, in the name of the cohesion of the independence camp, the UC having refused to go to this meeting.
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