New Caledonia: FLNKS to announce its position on Tuesday on the agreement signed with the State

The Socialist Kanak National Liberation Front (FLNKS) will announce its position on Tuesday on the agreement signed in mid-July with the state and non-independence supporters , movement officials said on Sunday.

The outcome is hardly in doubt: all the structures (parties and unions) that make up the FLNKS have already spoken out against the Bougival agreement, signed on July 12 after ten days of intense negotiations between pro-independence and non-pro-independence supporters under the aegis of the Minister for Overseas Territories, Manuel Valls.

The text, negotiated in the Paris region, provides in particular for the creation of a "State of New Caledonia" and a Caledonian nationality, as well as the possibility of transferring sovereign powers (currency, justice, police).

But although described as "historic" by loyalists, it immediately sparked a storm of protest from independence activists, because it does not provide for a new referendum on independence.

At the opening of an extraordinary congress on Saturday in La Conception, a suburb of Noumea, FLNKS president Christian Tein called, in a statement read by an activist, for a "clear and unambiguous" rejection of the agreement.

Its provisions "are simply an illustration of the administering power's contempt for our struggle for recognition as a colonized people," he said. Under judicial supervision, Christian Tein is banned from entering the French Pacific archipelago and attended the proceedings via videoconference.

Released on June 13 after a year of pretrial detention at Mulhouse-Lutterbach prison (Haut-Rhin), he remains under investigation for his alleged role in the violence that left 14 dead and billions of euros of damage in New Caledonia in 2024. The political leader has always denied calling for violence.

Inviting activists to "clarify (their) strategy," Christian Tein said that FLNKS members should remain "open to dialogue," which should take place "only on the terms of accession to full sovereignty," "in a bilateral format" with the State, and this "until September 24, 2025," as decided by the movement's previous congress last January.

"We must capitalize on our strengths and make the most of them in order to achieve full sovereignty no later than the 2027 presidential election," concluded Christian Tein.