New Caledonia: Valls' visit ends without agreement on institutional future

Discussions this week on the institutional future of New Caledonia between pro-independence and anti-independence supporters under the leadership of Manuel Valls have failed, leaving the archipelago without a clear political direction, a year after the most significant violence since the 1980s.

"No agreement has been reached," the Overseas Minister acknowledged Thursday during a press conference, following a three-day "conclave" held in an isolated hotel 2.5 hours from Noumea, chosen for greater confidentiality and to encourage peaceful dialogue. This blockage, added Manuel Valls, notably prevents "resolving the question of the composition of the electoral body," which was the origin of the insurrectional violence of May 2024, "and that of the exercise of the right to self-determination" of the French archipelago in the South Pacific. Since the last referendum in 2021, boycotted by the separatists, the political situation in the archipelago has been frozen. This election left the process without a clear outcome, to the point of provoking the riots of May 2024 which left 14 dead and more than two billion euros of damage, against a backdrop of acute economic crisis.

Negotiations on the future status of New Caledonia were relaunched in early 2025. Several rounds of discussions took place, and the former Prime Minister made three trips there, managing to bring back to the table two camps whose positions were difficult to reconcile and who no longer spoke to each other. During this last round, two projects were examined in depth, explained the Minister of Overseas Territories on Thursday. "One based on sovereignty with France," defended by the minister, and "the other based on federalism within the French Republic," supported in particular by the Loyalists, one of the branches of the non-independence movement. But "neither project was able to achieve consensus," regretted Manuel Valls. According to him, the Loyalists' project "challenged, in our eyes, the unity and indivisibility of New Caledonia," through "a de facto partition project."

The government's proposal, which provided for "dual nationality, French by law and Caledonian," as well as an "immediate transfer and delegation of sovereign powers," had sparked outrage among non-independence supporters, who felt that it amounted to effectively confirming the territory's independence. For non-independence MP Nicolas Metzdorf, "the major sticking point" is "the transfer of sovereign powers [...] to New Caledonia," before a possible delegation to France. "This is a proposal that we reject," he told AFP. "We are sticking to our proposal for a federated state with a strengthening of provincial powers," he continued.

The other loyalist leader, Sonia Backès, assured during a press conference that she had "avoided catastrophe for New Caledonia" , assuring that the absence of an agreement "is not chaos" . The next political deadline for New Caledonia is the holding of provincial elections, crucial because they determine the composition of the local government. They were initially due to be held in 2024 before being postponed by the riots in May. The Council of State has set the latest date for their holding at November 30, 2025.

"The government will have to examine the plan to call and organize provincial elections in accordance with the legal framework currently in force," that is, with a frozen electorate, said Manuel Valls. Since 2007, this freeze on the electorate has excluded from provincial elections most people who arrived in New Caledonia after November 1998, the date of the ratification of the Noumea Accords. Despite the failure, Manuel Valls welcomed a debate that "continued in a respectful manner" and considered that "points of convergence" had been identified. A monitoring committee, set up by the State, should allow a framework for dialogue to be maintained in the coming months, he assured. "I continue and will continue to work to avoid the return of violence," insisted the minister, calling on all political and social forces to "engage with the State for peace, dialogue and reconstruction."