after the riots, the island maintains hope for reconciliation

September 24 did not have the same connotation for everyone in New Caledonia. For some, this date marked Citizenship Day, one hundred and seventy-one years after the start of the colonization of the archipelago. For others, it was the 40th anniversary of the Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front (FLNKS), a gathering of parties seeking independence.

In both camps, the relative calm of this day classified as risky was surprising. “If there have been no major incidents, New Caledonia remains divided into two blocks,” remembers Nisié Filitoga, deacon of the diocese of Nouméa.

Since May 13, violence has punctuated the archipelago and led to the death of thirteen people, including two gendarmes. “The first weeks, there was smoke everywhere in the capital and the air smelled of burnt rubber,” says Bernard, who has lived on the island for ten years and wishes to remain anonymous. Even if the situation is less explosive, tensions persist. »

The government’s desire to allow French citizens residing in New Caledonia for more than ten years to vote in provincial elections is at the origin of the riots last spring. Currently, only citizens residing in the archipelago before 1998 have this right, under the Noumea Agreement signed the same year.

“This decision and the maintenance of the 2021 independence referendum, which the separatists had boycotted, put an end to the attitude of impartial arbiter that the French state cultivated,” analyzes Jean-Christophe Gay, geographer at the university from Nice (Alpes-Maritimes). “The political uncertainty of recent months in mainland France has not facilitated the resumption of dialogue either. »

Sit at the same table

Last June, the suspension of electoral reform did not calm things down. Nine independence leaders were imprisoned. And a social crisis was added to the political crisis. Public transport remains hampered and grocery store shelves are strewn. A third of private sector employees are partially unemployed due to the damage suffered by their companies or the difficult resumption of economic activity.

For a return to normal, we will have to sit everyone around the same table, which seems far from certain. Respected Kanak figures have no interest in taking a step towards reconciliation, Bernard believes. “After the Matignon Accords of 1988, which put an end to the conflict between loyalists and separatists, the Kanak leader Jean-Marie Tjibaou was assassinated, and therefore they too feared for their lives. »

In addition, the young instigators of the violence of recent months partly escape the control of the independence movements, which are struggling to channel them. They went so far as to burn down several churches. Nisié Filitoga believes that they are confusing the Catholic religion and the French state. But the deacon does not lose hope: “Time will favor reconciliation, we will be forced to find common ground despite opposition. »