France proposes statehood for New Caledonia: will it work?

In 2024, the South Pacific territory of New Caledonia experienced a recrudescence of unrest and violence linked to the long-lasting question of its continued attachment to France or eventual independence. Brought together by President Emmanuel Macron, on 12 July 2025, negotiators from pro- and anti-independence groups signed an agreement, the Bougival Accord, with the French government foreshadowing creation of an ‘État de la Nouvelle-Calédonie’. Few details of the Bougival Accord have been released, except that it promises a greater level of self-government for the territory, including the transfer of some metropolitan administrative and political prerogatives, a New Caledonian citizenship, the possibility of international diplomatic recognition, and the right to change the territory’s name and flag.

In French, as in English, ‘état’ means both an independent country (such as France or Australia) and a political entity that is fully part of an independent country (for example, the states within Australia and the US). It was in the latter sense that the French chose the word, though no doubt playing on the ambiguity of the term. New Caledonia, historically a ‘colony’, subsequently an ‘overseas territory’, and then an ‘overseas country’ would become a ‘state’, while remaining within the French Republic.

The new arrangement has no precedent in French administration. The French constitution of 1946 included provisions for ‘associated states’, but they existed for only a brief period before Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos gained independence in the 1950s. The current constitution, adopted in 1958, set up a (French) ‘Community’ along the lines of the Commonwealth. It barely got off the ground before most remaining French overseas outposts also became independent, rendering the organisation obsolete. In the 1980s the Mitterrand government mooted an ‘associated state’ status for New Caledonia — similar to that of the Cook Islands with New Zealand or several Micronesian island groups with the USA — but that was rejected by both indépendantistes and anti-independence loyalistes in New Caledonia.

New arrangement, new challenges

The creation of a ‘State of New Caledonia’ faces various obstacles. There will certainly be intense debate among stakeholders about the general principles and fine details. France’s constitutional court might rule certain changes unlawful. President Macron lacks a majority in the French parliament, and Prime Minister François Bayrou’s fragile government could be brought down by a vote of no confidence. Macron might have to resort to a controversial presidential degree to enact an enabling law for a ‘State of New Caledonia’. Protests from the extreme right and far left have already greeted the new proposal.

The main challenge is selling the plan in New Caledonia. The most ardent advocates of independence are unlikely to accept anything falling short of their goal, and adversaries militantly oppose changes threatening to undermine their rights as French citizens.

Both the pro- and anti-independence movements are, in fact, coalitions of parties and groups with varying ideologies and strategies.

Despite goodwill, ethnic and social tensions remain potent and inflammable. Results of a local referendum on the plan, scheduled for February, are unpredictable. Meanwhile, the territory of 270,000 residents (in which Kanaks form a minority of 41 percent) faces the challenges of rising unemployment and the volatile economy for nickel, its main export. The plan for a transformation in the statute of New Caledonia could also provoke new demands from pro-independence groups in French Polynesia.

Australia, France & New Caledonia

The French flag and the Front de Libération Nationale Kanak et Socialiste (FLNKS) flag of the independence movement fly on a dual flag pole in New Caledonia. While unofficial, the FLNKS flag is often used, and flown, across New Caledonia.

Australia’s interests would be best served with social calm in New Caledonia, political consensus and administrative structures that satisfy people across ethnic lines.

Australia’s relations with France have, on occasion, been rocky — from opposition to nuclear testing and French policy in its Pacific territories in the 1980s to the fiasco of cancelation of the contract to purchase French submarines in 2021. Under the Albanese government, relations have markedly improved. France is a valuable friend because of its key position in the European Union, United Nations and other forums. It is an important partner in the South Pacific, especially in light of China’s increasing initiatives (as in the Solomon Islands) and the erratic policy and imperialistic rhetoric of the American president.

France’s ‘turn’ to the Indo-Pacific, launched by President Macron in Sydney in 2018, affirms a sustained concern with a vast region that is bracketed, in the southern hemisphere, by the French sovereign territories of Mayotte and La Réunion in the western Indian Ocean and French Polynesia in the eastern Pacific.

In The Ends of Empire, which I co-authored with the geographer Professor John Connell FASSA in 2020, we pointed to important benefits of continued ‘dependent’ affiliation between demographically or geographically smaller or resource poor territories and larger metropoles.

About fifty overseas territories, mostly islands in the Atlantic, Indian or Pacific Oceans, are ‘dependencies’ of Britain, France, the Netherlands, Denmark, the United States, New Zealand and indeed Australia. Their links provide a high level of security for the territories and preserve democratic processes and human rights not always safeguarded in neighbouring independent states. Of particular significance are the generally high quality educational, medical and other infrastructures, the right of abode in the metropoles for the territories’ people, and voluminous and crucial amounts of budgetary aid.

‘Dependent’ status nevertheless incurs a cost in political asymmetries between mainland and overseas outposts, lack of full decision-making powers for local governments, and especially for indigenous people, certain compromises in feelings of identity and expressions of culture. We nevertheless suggested that the trend in recent decades has been continuation of negotiated ‘dependency’, albeit with regular alterations in its parameters and recurrent debate, including remonstrances from those seeking full independence.

The Bougival Accord, in principle, represents an effort to devise an innovative political structure acceptable to diverse groups and competing interests. For some, however, it will appear only as the emperor’s new clothes. Only time will tell whether that customised clothing is vintage ware, well-fitting and long-lasting attire, or just fast fashion.

The post France proposes statehood for New Caledonia: will it work? appeared first on Australian Academy of the Humanities.