2023-09-09 10:30:00
Meeting at the Elysée with New Caledonian political leaders, September 8, 2023. GEOFFROY VAN DER HASSELT / AFP
New Caledonian separatist and non-separatist delegations were received in Beauvau then at the Elysée on Friday September 8 – a first since 2019 – to discuss the institutional future of New Caledonia and define a project to get out of the Noumea agreement. The Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, reveals to the Monde the project submitted to New Caledonians.
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How to explain that the New Caledonian loyalists and separatists have finally agreed to meet together before the State to discuss the future of the territory?
It is necessary to note the good will of all the actors and I thank them for it. They all came to
the invitation of the Prime Minister. We held two trilateral meetings
[Etat/indépendantistes/non-indépendantistes], and a third took place in front of the President of the Republic. This is not nothing, because this has not happened since 2019. I got personally involved by going to New Caledonia four times in one year: we had a lot of exchanges. A trust was created.
Furthermore, we are trying to resolve the major problems of Caillou, whose president has
recalled the importance in the Indo-Pacific axis: global warming, nickel,
the balance of accounts. We repeated that we were going to support New Caledonia on nickel, which is in great difficulty. The State will help New Caledonia to complete its budgetary exercises.
You put a document on the table. What’s he saying ?
We decided to propose, on behalf of the State, a project, because no one was proposing it… It first provides for the modernization of New Caledonia’s institutions. We are proposing changes in the distribution of competences between the three provinces and the government, because there are difficulties: three different environmental codes, for
example ! We propose that the president of the government be elected directly by the
Congress of New Caledonia and that the number of elected representatives from the provinces in the Congress responds to demographic developments. Then, the project reaffirms that New Caledonia, which has remained French, retains a specific title in the Constitution, and that we will not touch the Nouméa agreement of 1998, which provides for New Caledonian citizenship in French citizenship. , as well as his other achievements. The project proposes an agreement for the provincial elections of 2024 by unfreezing the electorate under certain conditions more in line with general democratic rules.
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