{"id":38951,"date":"2018-05-01T11:00:29","date_gmt":"2018-05-01T01:00:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=38951"},"modified":"2018-05-15T11:54:20","modified_gmt":"2018-05-15T01:54:20","slug":"mr-macron-goes-noumea","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/mr-macron-goes-noumea\/","title":{"rendered":"Remembering the past and preparing the future"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Australian policy observers are focused on President Emmanuel Macron\u2019s first visit to Australia. But there will be another first immediately afterwards: his visit to the French territory of New Caledonia across the Coral Sea.<\/p>\n

The purpose of Macron\u2019s visit is to lend his personal support to the preparations under way for the long-promised independence referendum to be held 4\u00a0November. The referendum brings to an end the 1998\u00a0Noumea Accord, which, together with predecessor agreements, has presided over 30\u00a0years of stability and economic growth on our doorstep. While demonstrations and protests are normally part of the scene when French presidents visit New Caledonia, emotions are likely to be running particularly high during this visit.<\/p>\n

Macron has timed his visit\u2014from 3 to 5\u00a0May\u2014very carefully to coincide with three critical anniversaries. The first is the 5\u00a0May\u00a01988 massacre at Gossanah Cave, on the island of Ouv\u00e9a in the Loyalty Islands. This was a watershed event of the bloody 1980s\u00a0civil war over independence, when frustrated Kanak independence supporters attacked a police station and took French police hostages in a cave.<\/p>\n

The resultant French crackdown ended in 21\u00a0deaths\u201419\u00a0Kanak and two French police officers. It led the French state finally to address the underlying concerns it had mishandled for years: the Kanaks\u2019 desire that their identity be recognised, and the desire of supporters of independence\u2014mainly Kanaks\u2014for an independence vote.<\/strong> French efforts resulted in the signature of the 1988\u00a0Matignon Accords, which promised a referendum by\u00a01998.<\/p>\n

Just one year after the Gossanah Cave deaths, on 4\u00a0May\u00a01989, independence leaders Jean-Marie Tjibaou and his colleague Y\u00e9w\u00e9ni Y\u00e9w\u00e9ni were assassinated by one of their own supporters for having signed the Matignon Accords and agreed to its compromises.<\/p>\n

The last and most important anniversary being marked by Macron\u2019s visit is 5\u00a0May\u00a01998, when all political parties in New Caledonia signed on to the Noumea Accord, which extended the promise of a referendum by 20\u00a0years, to November\u00a02018, and, crucially, recognised the trauma of colonisation on the Kanak people in its preamble<\/a>.<\/p>\n

By choosing to visit at this time, Macron is making a strong symbolic gesture towards reconciliation, not shirking the Gossanah Cave event, but acknowledging the real contributions of the Matignon and Noumea Accords to the present shape of New Caledonia, and hopefully to its future.<\/p>\n

During his visit, Macron will visit the capital, Noumea; the Kanak heartland in the Northern Province at Kon\u00e9; and Ouv\u00e9a itself in the Loyalty Islands. Reflecting the ongoing sensitivities around the milestone events that his visit marks, word of his visit to Ouv\u00e9a led to some Kanak parties opposing a visit by Macron to Gossanah Cave<\/a>. At last report, Macron wasn\u2019t planning to go to the cave itself. He has also chosen a neutral venue, the Nouville Theatre, for his major speech, on Saturday, 5\u00a0May.<\/p>\n

Also reflecting heightened local sensitivities, as political party leaders\u2014both pro-France and pro-independence\u2014meet under the auspices of a new Dialogue Group on the Future, Macron\u2019s spokesman has indicated that the President won\u2019t favour either side in the referendum preparation process<\/a>, reiterating that it\u2019s for Caledonians to choose their future, and that he\u2019s \u2018very attached\u2019 to respecting their choice.<\/p>\n

Macron\u2019s approach during his visit will therefore be carefully calibrated. All parties are positioning themselves for the discussions under way about the future of New Caledonia after the referendum, whatever the result might be.<\/p>\n

Recently, some pro-France parties withdrew<\/a> from the core Committee of 10 leaders group that was fostered by Macron\u2019s Prime Minister, \u00c9douard Philippe, on the grounds that the group was giving too much attention to the effects of colonisation on the Kanak people in its draft Charter of Common Values. Philippe could only draw those groups back in by re-framing the group as the Dialogue Group on the Future and nominating a personal representative with conservative connections attractive to Caledonian loyalists.<\/p>\n

In return, on the pro-independence side, in a bid to retain references to the damaging effects of colonisation in the Charter of Values, members of the Kanak Customary Senate, an advisory body created by the Noumea Accord, have called on Macron to declare colonisation in New Caledonia a \u2018crime against humanity<\/a>\u2019, as he had labelled French colonisation in Algeria in 2017\u00a0when he was a presidential candidate<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s unlikely that Macron will buy into that statement, although he can be expected to defend the spirit of the Noumea Accord in ongoing discussions between local parties. Meanwhile, another group of independence supporters is watching the preparation of electoral lists closely,\u00a0warning of a possible election boycott<\/a> if the process isn\u2019t deemed fair.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Australian policy observers are focused on President Emmanuel Macron\u2019s first visit to Australia. But there will be another first immediately afterwards: his visit to the French territory of New Caledonia across the Coral Sea. The …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":258,"featured_media":38952,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[921],"class_list":["post-38951","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","tag-new-caledonia"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nRemembering the past and preparing the future | The Strategist<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/mr-macron-goes-noumea\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Remembering the past and preparing the future | The Strategist\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Australian policy observers are focused on President Emmanuel Macron\u2019s first visit to Australia. 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