The deputies unanimously approved on Wednesday November 6 the postponement until November 2025 of the provincial elections in New Caledonia, a vote which should make it possible to calm the situation on an archipelago battered by several months of violence which left 13 dead and billions of euros in damage. Initially, senators largely supported the socialist bill aimed at postponing its elections.
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“ I believe that postponing the provincial and congressional elections contributes […] to calm the situation and allow the opening […] a new space for discussion, debate and I was going to say, beyond that, construction », hoped the Minister of Overseas François-Noël Buffet.
Plunged into a deep crisis since the spring, riots broke out in May, in reaction to the government’s desire to adopt a highly sensitive constitutional reform on the expansion of the New Caledonian electorate. There New Caledonia therefore obtains a period of one year to calmly prepare for the renewal of the provincial elections, which were initially to be held before December 15, 2024.
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Rebuild the economy and renew dialogue
A decision deemed necessary by Paris and Nouméa to calm the climate, rebuild the region’s economy and renew dialogue to find a global agreement, including the very sensitive issue of the electorate. The redefinition of the electoral body provided for opening the right to vote in local elections to all French citizens living in New Caledonia for ten years. This reform was not acceptable to the Kanaks and contrary to the Nouméa agreements of 1998, it caused a real tsunami in the territory.
Pressed for time, the government had no other choice than to rely on an opposition text, a socialist initiative, to bring about this postponement, the Prime Minister Michel Barnier committed to this in its general policy declaration. The President of the Senate, Gérard Larcher, and the President of the National Assembly, Yaël Braun-Pivet, are traveling to New Caledonia this weekend for a consultation and dialogue mission.
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