Paris (AFP)

Prime Minister tries Thursday Matignon to agree with the leaders of the Loyalists and New Caledonian independence on the date and the electorate of the next referendum on the independence of the archipelago, two very sensitive issues on which Edouard Philippe intends "to seek consensus ".

After the first referendum of self-determination, which took place on November 4, 2018 and saw the victory of the "no" (56,7%), the Prime Minister wants that this second consultation "is as irreproachable as the first", welcomed by all political actors and observers. The dreaded incidents did not take place and the mobilization reached a record of 81%.

These successive independence polls are provided for by the 1998 Nouméa Accord, which set up a process of decolonization in stages, the culmination of the work of reconciliation between the Kanaks and the Caldoches, begun in 1988 with the Matignon Accords. . These agreements were signed after the violence of the 1980s, which culminated in the uprising and the assault on the Ouvéa cave in May 1988 (25 dead).

After the first referendum, the Nouméa agreement provides for the holding of two more polls by November 2022. The first of them, requested in June by several political forces in New Caledonia after the last provincial elections, must have place by November 3, 2020.

It is up to the State to fix the date, but the Prime Minister has assured to want to do so "with the concern for dialogue", while independent and non-independence come with different demands.

Convinced that time will allow them to win votes, separatists whose score last year (43.3%) far exceeded the forecasts of the polls, defend a referendum "as late as possible", according to Pierre-Chanel Tutugoro, of the New Caledonian Union, member of the FLNKS (Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front).

Conversely, in the highly divided non-independence camp, some of them, the Avenir en confiance (close to the Republicans) want to go fast, arguing in particular of a local economy "in uncertainty" because of these elections. They are calling for a second referendum next July.

"The question is whether the current term (President Macron, ed) will go to the end, or if it will return the problem" after the presidential election, said Thierry Santa, President of the Government of New Caledonia (Future) in trust).

- "Nuclear Heart" -

But his rival right, Caledonia together (EC, center right) alert on the "danger" to accelerate the calendar, which would bring down the 3rd referendum "in the heart of the presidential election with major risks of national political instrumentalization of the New Caledonian file ", explains the deputy (CE-UDI) Philippe Gomès.

"We are still cold in the back to remember the last time the case was used in a presidential election," he said. The tragedy of Ouvéa took place between the two rounds of the presidential election of May 88 which saw the re-election of the socialist president François Mitterrand against Jacques Chirac.

Edouard Philippe also felt that "we should think about how the timing of these consultations could be combined with the calendar of national political deadlines, because obviously the two are neither unrelated nor without impact. on the other".

The Prime Minister must decide on another major subject of disagreement, the question of the electoral body for the referendum, more restricted than for other elections, and a real "nuclear heart", according to a specialist in the file.

The separatists refuse, in particular, to renew a provision wrestled with hard struggle before the first referendum, concerning the automatic registration of Caledonians of common law status (non kanak, ed) born in New Caledonia and who can attest to three years. of residence. About 4,000 people would be concerned.

"It was then an exceptional measure (...) only valid for the first referendum", argues the FLNKS, while the loyalists demand "the same conditions" as those of the first ballot. "There can not be a Caledonian people with variable geometry", defends Philippe Gomès.

"Succeeding this second consultation means that we must rely on what has already been done," said Philippe.

© 2019 AFP