A visit placed under the sign of an outstretched hand.

While Gérald Darmanin arrives this Monday in New Caledonia, in his capacity as Minister of the Interior and Overseas, the separatists of the FLNKS have agreed to meet him, a month after zapped appointments in Paris.

At the end of October, the separatists had refused to participate in a meeting organized in Paris under the aegis of Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne to define the method, the themes and the timetable for negotiations on the future status of New Caledonia after three referendums which rejected independence, but the last of which is contested by the independence camp.

The various parties making up the Socialist Kanak National Liberation Front have this time decided, during their respective congresses, to participate in bilateral meetings with the State, during this visit placed under the sign of the institutional future of the island. .

However, the dialogue had been broken for more than a year, the separatists pointing out several blunders: lightning passage of Yaël Braun-Pivet at the Ministry of Overseas, cancellation of a first trip by Gérald Darmanin in July and half-hearted visit of its Minister Delegate for Overseas Jean-François Carenco in September.

Disagreement over the referendum

However, if the separatist parties intend to reopen the dialogue, it will be on the one and only basis of independence, accompanied by a possible partnership with France.

On the other side of the political spectrum, the loyalists want the State to confirm to the territory a definitive status of "New Caledonia in France", legitimized according to them by their victory in the three referendums of self-determination planned by the Nouméa agreement of 1998 and which were held in 2018, 2020 and 2021.

But the separatists, who boycotted the December 12, 2021 ballot due to the Covid crisis, dispute the result of this third referendum won by 96.5% by supporters of France, but with a participation of only 43.8% against 85.69% in 2020 and 81.01% in 2018. Loyalists and separatists have one thing in common, however: they want the state to come out of supposed neutrality and take a stand.

Which would certainly lead to the departure of one of the protagonists from the discussion table.

Employers on the verge of bankruptcy, the island in debt

Forced into a difficult balancing act, Gérald Darmanin will also be questioned about the help that France can bring to an almost bloodless territory, despite the reforms initiated by the independence president Louis Mapou.

Upon his arrival, the civil service will be on strike for the revaluation of the index point in the face of inflation of nearly 10% in one year.

Société Le Nickel (SLN), the country's largest private employer, should be insolvent by next March at the latest.

Visiting the territory last week, the CEO of Eramet, the main shareholder of the company specializing in the extraction and processing of nickel, made no secret of it.

Christel Bories is considering asking for state aid again, after a first loan of 200 million euros contracted in 2016.



Enercal, a semi-public company in charge of the territory's electricity network, is also on the verge of insolvency, due to the explosion in the cost of fossil fuels on which New Caledonia is very dependent.

Files, however, of New Caledonian competence, but which the archipelago, over-indebted since the Covid crisis, cannot face alone.

New Caledonia has thus taken out two loans from the French Development Agency, one for 240 million euros in May 2020, the other for 175.5 million euros last July.

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New Caledonia: The future of the archipelago is discussed in Paris without the separatists

  • Company

  • Gerald Darmanin

  • New Caledonia

  • Jean-Francois Carenco

  • Independence

  • Referendum