Emmanuel Macron affirmed, this Wednesday, June 12, to “suspend” the draft constitutional law modifying the electoral body of New Caledonia at the origin of the riots on site, in order to “give all its strength to dialogue on site and to the return to order”.
“The constitutional bill which was voted on in the same terms by both chambers, I decided to suspend it because we cannot leave ambiguity in the period,” declared the head of state during his press conference.
Adopted successively by the Senate in April then the National Assembly last month, this text still had to be adopted by the two chambers meeting in Congress before June 30. De facto, the head of state cannot convene a Congress since the dissolution of the National Assembly. Pushed by the loyalist camp, it aimed to expand the electorate, frozen since 2007, for the provincial elections scheduled for the end of the year. The independence camp fiercely opposed it, believing that it would marginalize indigenous voters.
Its adoption fueled violent riots in the French territory of the South Pacific from May 13, the most serious since the political crisis of the 1980s. They caused nine deaths, hundreds of injuries and very significant damage, according to the latest assessment made public by the authorities.
In recent days, the independence camp had already, before the words of the Head of State, taken note of the end of the contested electoral reform. “We can agree together that the European elections will have defeated the constitutional law”, said the Kanak Liberation Party (Palika) earlier on Wednesday, “the time must be for the reconstruction of peace and social cohesion” .