Why is France holding onto New Caledonia — a Pacific territory on the other side of the world?
Views on independence from France are split in New Caledonia.
Half a world away from France, a city sometimes called "Paris in the Pacific" is counting the cost of violent unrest.
Months of riots and blockades shook Nouméa, the capital of New Caledonia, earlier this year, causing 13 deaths and damaging hundreds of businesses.
It was the latest chapter in a decades-old struggle between people who want independence from France and those who want to remain a French territory.
France already spends about 1.5 billion euros ($2.4 billion) a year administering the territory and it's expected to cost another 4 billion euros ($6.4 billion) to repair the damage.
Several months of civil unrest have done enormous damage to New Caledonia's businesses and economy.
And experts say the crisis has come at a major reputational cost for France in the region.
"It's reminded neighbouring countries that France is still a colonial power a quarter of the way through the 21st century," journalist Nic Maclellan, who has covered the territory for decades, said.
Most of New Caledonia's Pacific neighbours gained independence from colonial powers in the 1970s and '80s.
So why is France holding onto the territory?
What's in it for France?
More than 150 years after it took over New Caledonia, the territory — about 1,500 kilometres from Queensland's coast — remains a valuable possession for France.
That's partly because of what lies underground and in its oceans, experts say.
New Caledonia has large reserves of nickel — a precious commodity for renewable technologies and something President Emmanuel Macron raised on a visit last year.
"He talked about nickel not only as wealth for New Caledonians but as a vital strategic resource for France and for Europe," Mr Maclellan said.
New Caledonia's nickel industry, including its operations at Koniambo Nickel SAS Vavouto (pictured), remain an important part of its economy despite a recent downturn.
France's overseas territories also give it a massive exclusive economic zone (EEZ) — ocean beyond its own immediate seas where it can explore and use maritime resources.
About 60 per cent of its EEZ is in the Pacific, including about 1.4 million square kilometres of ocean around New Caledonia.
"At a time where people talk of the blue economy, of seabed resources, deep sea oil and gas, fisheries, marine biodiversity — that's an incredible resource to control," Mr Maclellan said.
France's Pacific territories help expand its exclusive economic zone well beyond Europe.
Experts say France's Pacific territories also offer something that can't be underestimated — prestige.
"For centuries, France has always been obsessed with its international status, or what it refers to as its rank," Australian National University researcher in French foreign policy Eglantine Staunton said.
"It constantly tries to promote the idea that France is more than a middle-sized power."
And in recent years under Mr Macron's presidency, the European nation has turned its gaze on the Indian and Pacific oceans.
"[The French government has] argued that the growing competition between China and the United States, but also the economic growth in the region for the past two decades, and its vulnerability to environmental issues in climate change, make it an area to prioritise," Dr Staunton said.
Emmanuel Macron, pictured on a visit to Vanuatu in July 2023, has tried to build France's status in the region.
New Caledonia is a hub for the French military in the Pacific. It hosts a naval base home to small and medium vessels, surveillance and transport aircraft, and helicopters with soldiers mostly deployed on rotations from France.
Dr Staunton said France wanted to be seen as a "balancing power" for the region amid growing competition between China and the US, one that promotes a less confrontational approach to containing China's ambitions.
"France shares the US's will to contain China's influence in the region, but it wants to promote a different pathway than the one proposed by the US and now AUKUS," Dr Staunton said.
France released its "Indo-Pacific Strategy" in 2018, saying it wanted to keep the region "open and inclusive, free of all forms of coercion and founded on multilateralism and the respect of international law".
The Pointe Chaleix naval base in Nouméa helps give France a military presence in the Pacific.
As France became more involved with the region, its Pacific territories had a special importance, Dr Staunton said.
"New Caledonia is key to France's argument that it is an Indo-Pacific nation and a key actor in the region," she said.
What do New Caledonians want?
France's ambassador in the Pacific, Véronique Roger-Lacan, said it was not a question of France holding onto New Caledonia.
She said overseas territories were choosing to stay part of France.
French ambassador to the Pacific, Véronique Roger-Lacan.
"There is a strong attachment to the French Republic, so this is what the Australian public should have in mind. They should reverse the reasoning," Ms Roger-Lacan said.
"It's not that France is hanging onto those territories, but it's the fact that there are lots of people — actually the majority — who [want to be] in the French Republic."
Nicole George, a University of Queensland researcher on the Pacific Islands who was in Nouméa when unrest broke out in May, said many people in New Caledonia identified as French.
"The idea that France would give up this territory is hard for a big part of the population to accept," she said.
Views on independence are split in New Caledonia.
A large part of New Caledonia's population wants to stay in the French Republic.
Today, under the Nouméa Accord reached in 1998, New Caledonia has a locally elected government that controls areas like health, tourism, agriculture and fisheries, and both primary and secondary education.
But France still has power over defence, foreign policy, the justice system, currency, and tertiary education.
Most in New Caledonia's Indigenous Kanak community want that to change.
The pro-independence movement in New Caledonia has existed since the 1970s.
"We've been pushing for independence for New Caledonia, so that we are able to manage our own affairs, just like in the other independent countries," Party of Kanak Liberation representative Jimmy Naouna said.
Another reason for the independence push in New Caledonia is inequality, experts say.
While it has one of the highest GDPs per capita in the Pacific, there are large wealth gaps in the territory.
"That was shown during the crisis in May and June, where young people and not so young, came out of the squatter settlements to attack supermarkets, to burn down the Porsche dealership in Nouméa, to really show that the economic, social, political gulf between communities is very deep," Mr Maclellan said.
There were both political and economic reasons for the riots that engulfed Nouméa.
The divide over independence was reflected over three referendums on the issue.
In 2018, 57 per cent rejected independence, and in 2020 that shrunk to 53 per cent.
But the third referendum in 2021 remains controversial.
The third referendum went ahead after COVID-19 swept through New Caledonia in 2021.
Pro-independence groups requested a delay while the Kanak community mourned people who died from COVID.
When France refused, pro-independence supporters boycotted and the referendum returned a 96.5 per cent "no" vote — a result the independence movement rejected.
The parties have since been unable to agree on a path forward.
Tensions radically escalated when French lawmakers tried to reform the electoral system in May.
For years, only families who had lived in New Caledonia before 1998 could vote in local elections, but Paris wanted to scrap those restrictions, which would add more non-Kanak people to voting rolls.
Independence supporters feared that would skew any future referendum, and people took to the streets.
"Many independence supporters thought we will now never, ever win … because the vote will be immediately slanted towards supporters of continued links with France," University of Melbourne expert in New Caledonian history and politics Professor Simon Batterbury said.
The French government has dropped the reforms and after months of violence, there's a fragile calm now in New Caledonia.
What's next?
The parties are expected to resume talks over the territory's political status.
But negotiations will be fraught with uncertainty.
Mr Naouna, from the Party of Kanak Liberation, said it was just a matter of time before New Caledonia achieved independence.
"We are in an irreversible process now of decolonisation," he said.
"It's just a matter of finding the right political agreement between parties in New Caledonia and the French state."
His party wants to negotiate a fourth referendum on independence to be held in the next five to 10 years.
On the anti-independence side, some argue there should be no pathway to independence after the three referendums.
Ms Roger-Lacan said as parties returned to negotiations, it would be up to New Caledonians to agree on a way forward.
"It is not up to the French authorities, it is up to New Caledonians to identify what they want together, what they can agree on," she said.
"They have to find something. If it is independence … it cannot be something that will be imposed on people that don't want it. There is some compromise to be identified somewhere by all of them."
Mr Maclellan said local elections had been delayed until 2025, giving about a year to resolve the situation.
"One thing that's clear, there can be no solution without the Indigenous Kanak people," he said.
"And the younger generation has shown over the last six months that they still want a pathway towards independence and sovereignty.
"Can that be done within the French Republic? Time will tell."
As parties prepare to meet, some experts say France's status in the Pacific is at stake.
Dr Staunton said France should "proceed extremely carefully" on the matter of New Caledonia.
France deployed security personnel this year in response to the unrest that broke out in May.
"There is still a lot of distrust in the region over France's colonial past … and it is now more important than ever to act as a responsible power by fulfilling France's responsibility in terms of decolonisation," she said.
"Failing to do so will not only permanently endanger France's relationship with territories such as New Caledonia, it risks derailing its entire Indo-Pacific Strategy.
"France indeed cannot claim to be an Indo-Pacific power if it does not listen to Indigenous communities."
By：ABC(责任编辑：admin)
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