Europe 1 with AFP 11:41 a.m., April 20, 2022

For the second round of the presidential election, the separatists of New Caledonia asked their activists and sympathizers to "abstain", not wanting to decide between "the far right" and the outgoing president, whom they accuse of having maintained the referendum on independence last December.

The separatists of New Caledonia asked their activists and sympathizers to "abstain" on Sunday during the second round of the presidential election, not wanting to decide between "the far right" and the outgoing president, whom they accuse of having maintained the referendum on independence last December.

This abstention instruction was communicated on Wednesday in a short text signed by the FLNKS (National Kanak Socialist Liberation Front), a historic Kanak struggle movement, but also by the USTKE union, and its political branch, the Labor Party, and the Unitary dynamic south (DUS).

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No approval of the independence referendum proposed by Macron

"There is no hesitation about the dam against the far right. Nevertheless, voting for Emmanuel Macron means approving the bogus referendum consultation of December 12 that the outgoing president has stubbornly organized in defiance of the Kanak people", said the DUS, member of the support committee for Jean-Luc Mélenchon, in a press release.

The separatists had unsuccessfully asked the State to postpone the third and final referendum on the independence of the Noumea Agreement (1998) to the end of 2022, due to the health crisis which, according to them, had not made it possible to carry out campaign.

The vote, which the separatists boycotted, was won hands down by the loyalists (96.5%) but the FLNKS refused to recognize the result and filed several administrative appeals.

"It's an internal election in France, this choice is up to the French people alone. We tell our activists not to go and vote", also declared on April 11 Daniel Goa, president of the Union Calédonienne (UC- FLNKS).

During the first round of the presidential election in New Caledonia, Emmanuel Macron came out on top (40.51%), followed by Marine Le Pen (18.83%) and Jean-Luc Mélenchon (13.77%), against a background of record abstention (66.65%).