Mad Max in paradise: New Caledonia in turmoil

By Pete McKenzie

At 5.30pm on May 13th Nancy Travers, a small woman with an ash-blonde bob, was driving back to her home in a leafy, seaside suburb of Nouméa, the capital of the French territory of New Caledonia. For more than a week, the poor, indigenous Kanak minority had been protesting against French rule. Now, at the end of a long promenade lined with coconut palms, Travers came to a roundabout. Roughly a hundred young protesters gathered in the road, dancing and chanting, “This is our place, this is our country!”

The nickel-rich islands were annexed by France in 1853, but their status has been in limbo since a long civil war in the 1980s, during which French troops and local militias killed dozens of Kanaks. Eventually, both sides agreed to hold three referendums on the territory’s independence. According to the terms of the Nouméa Accord, an agreement made in 1998, New Caledonia’s electoral rolls were to be frozen until all the votes were held, making it impossible for recent arrivals from France to affect the result. The last of these referendums, held in 2021, seemed to be an overwhelming victory for those who wished to remain part of France. But Kanak leaders had boycotted the vote after Emmanuel Macron, the French president, refused to delay it amid the covid-19 pandemic. They argued that customary mourning rituals for those who had died had prevented them from participating.