Paris (AFP)

Edouard Philippe proposed Saturday to postpone to October 4 the referendum on the independence of New Caledonia initially scheduled for September 6, due to the logistical difficulties born from the crisis of Covid-19, announces a press release from Matignon.

The Prime Minister transmitted a draft decree with this new date to the presidents of the government and the congress of New Caledonia for advisory opinion within 15 days. The text should be presented to the Council of Ministers in the second half of June, the State fixing the date of the referendum.

"In order to guarantee the irreproachable nature of the organization of the referendum", the Prime Minister "proposes that the date of the referendum" on the accession to full sovereignty of New Caledonia, "initially stopped on September 6, 2020, be set for October 4, 2020, "said the press release.

Because even if "the preparations for the referendum were continued" during the health crisis, "a risk remains on the framing of the voting procedures", explains Matignon.

"Our ability to collect 250 applications for national and international observers, and to send them to New Caledonia within deadlines compatible with the three weeks of quarantine required to date" for each arriving in New Caledonia "is not guaranteed ", added the press release.

Thanks to a drastic reduction in international flights and a very strict quarantine, New Caledonia has only recorded 18 cases of Covid-19.

In letters to the president of the government, the loyalist Thierry Santa (Avenir en Confiance, near to the Republicans), and to the president of the Congress, the independent Kanak Rock Wamytan (UC-FLNKS), the Prime Minister underlines that it is "to ensure the irreproachable character of the organization of the referendum, so that its result is incontestable and uncontested".

After the first referendum, which was held on November 4, 2018 and saw the victory of the "no" to independence (56.7%), the date of a second referendum had been set by the Prime Minister at 6 September 2020, less than two years after the first, as provided for by the Noumea agreement which organizes the gradual decolonization of the archipelago.

© 2020 AFP