By NIC MACLELLAN,Reporter Ib

Copyright islandsbusiness

ACROSS the Pacific islands, people know that earthquakes can trigger tsunamis that travel across vast distances.

The latest earthquake in Paris is the resignation of French Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu, just 27 days after he was appointed by President Emmanuel Macron. The collapse of the Lecornu government on Monday came less than a day after he appointed his Council of Ministers, after weeks of delay.

Three French governments have crumbled in less than a year, and the repeated shockwaves keep travelling to the other side of the world, affecting the people of New Caledonia, French Polynesia and Wallis and Futuna.

Sébastien Lecornu was appointed as Prime Minister on September 9 after the resignation of his predecessor François Bayrou, defeated in a parliamentary confidence motion the previous day. But without a majority in the National Assembly, Lecornu faced the same problem as Bayrou, and the government before that led by Michel Barnier.

For weeks, Lecornu delayed appointing his Council of Ministers, as he tried to negotiate with different delegations in the French legislature to forge agreement on the budget. He failed to win support, and just hours after appointing new ministers, he resigned. The collapse of the government added to chaos in the French parliament that has continued since President Macron lost his governing majority in 2022 elections and had a worse result in snap elections he called in 2024.

Problems for the Pacific

The fast-moving crisis in Paris has caused problems for leaders in the francophone Pacific territories, such as Presidents Alcide Ponga of New Caledonia and Moetai Brotherson of French Polynesia.

A month ago, the fall of the Bayrou government came on the same day that the 54th Pacific Islands Forum began in Honiara on September 8. At the time, both Ponga and Brotherson told Islands Business they hoped a new government under Prime Minister Lecornu would allow some continuity, to implement key policy changes in the pipeline between Paris, Noumea and Papeete.

At the Forum in Honiara, President Brotherson said: “We have a number of dossiers with the French government, on health, education, and other matters between our ministers and those in Paris. We’ll have to wait and see if we’ll have the same interlocutors in the next government. If that isn’t the case, we’ll have to re-explain everything.”

Reflecting on the collapse of the Bayrou government, he said: “This is not the first change of government that French Polynesia has followed at a distance. I hope it will be the last before the next presidential elections.” (No such luck!).

In Honiara last month, both Ponga and Brotherson said they would welcome the re-appointment of outgoing Overseas Minister Manuel Valls, so that key dossiers on the Pacific could be implemented without delay; the Bougival process; the planned delay of provincial elections in New Caledonia; discussions around a new political statute for French Polynesia; and the provision of crucial economic aid under a revised French budget.

“There will be an impact if they change the Overseas Minister,” Brotherson said last month, “because he’s deeply involved in this matter and has carried the Bougival process. If there’s a change and they delegate responsibility for New Caledonia to another minister – well, that’s a game changer.”

On Tuesday last week, Brotherson joined other leaders from France’s overseas colonies at a dinner with Emmanuel Macron at the Élysée Palace in Paris. After the dinner, Brotherson reiterated his call for continuity in overseas policy: “The situation is complicated from Mayotte to French Guyana, the Antilles, and obviously in New Caledonia. I do not think this is the right time to change interlocutors. Everyone who was present at the dinner at the Élysée expressed themselves in this regard, whether they were parliamentarians or heads of government. I believe that the vast majority of people who were present would like Manuel Valls to be reinstated in his functions.”

On Sunday, after weeks of delay, Prime Minister Lecornu did re-appoint Valls to the Overseas Ministry. But less than a day later, Lecornu resigned, the government collapsed, and Valls was minister for barely 12 hours! The newly appointed ministers stay in caretaker mode until there is a new government, but under French law their powers are strictly limited and, with rare exceptions, they cannot initiate new legislation in parliament – throwing proposed laws on New Caledonia into chaos.

This crisis has sparked widespread protests and strikes in France. An opinion poll taken the day after Lecornu’s resignation shows seven out of ten French voters think President Macron should resign. But whatever comes next, the peoples of France’s overseas colonies will bear the brunt.

Delay to reform of voting rights

The collapse of three French governments in less than a year has disrupted plans to hold local elections in New Caledonia under new electoral rolls.

Every five years since 1999, New Caledonia has held elections for its three provincial assemblies, in the North, South and Loyalty Islands. These polls are based on a special electoral roll restricted to New Caledonian citizens, with strict residency requirements. Around 2/3 of the members of these provincial assemblies make up the 54-member Congress of New Caledonia.

However, the electoral roll for the provinces is different to the general electoral roll used for elections to the French National Assembly, the French presidency or local municipal council elections (which are open to all French nationals of voting age). Tens of thousands of French voters who reside in New Caledonia are ineligible to vote in the provincial elections.

Over many years, with support from conservative anti-independence leaders, excluded voters have campaigned for the abolition of voting restrictions for the New Caledonian institutions. Last year, two associations launched a court case in Paris against the restrictive residency requirement for voting. However on 19 September, France’s Conseil constitutionelle – the nation’s highest constitutional court – issued a crucial ruling, rejecting the submission that the current “freezing” of voting rights is unconstitutional.

The Constitutional court in Paris ruled the freeze on the electoral body is a derogation from the principles of equality in the French vote, but nonetheless remains compliant with the Constitution: “Since exceptions to the principles of equality and universality of suffrage were provided for by the Constitution itself, the Constitutional Council concluded that the contested provisions could not be deemed contrary to the Constitution.”

The Court stated, however, this ruling does not preclude future modification of the electoral body, “to take into account the changes in the demographic situation of New Caledonia” and mitigate “the deviations from the principles of universality and equality of the vote will have taken place.”

Changes to electoral laws has been debated ever since the Noumea Accord was signed in May 1998. However, even after three referendums on self-determination, this framework agreement – and its voting system – remains in place until a replacement political statute can be agreed between all parties and then legislated in Paris.

Last year, without waiting for this consensus in Noumea, French President Emmanuel Macron made a unilateral attempt to expand the voting body, proposing new laws to change the residency requirements that define New Caledonian citizenship. His attempt to add thousands more French electors to the rolls was the key trigger that led to six months of riots and clashes, leaving 14 dead, hundreds injured, 2600 arrested, and New Caledonia’s economy in freefall, with a 13.5 per cent drop in GDP for 2024.

From February this year, outgoing Overseas Minister Manuel Valls initiated a series of multi-party discussions, first at Deva in New Caledonia and then at Bougival in France, to forge consensus on a new political statute to replace the Noumea Accord. On July 12, negotiators in Paris initialled an agreement to promote significant changes to their supporters and voters.

However, as negotiators returned home, there was criticism of the draft Bougival agreement across the political spectrum, and especially amongst the main independence coalition FLNKS. An extraordinary FLNKS congress in August formally rejected the agreement. For this reason, the legislative process to implement Bougival was already in trouble, even before the collapse of the Bayrou government in September and Lecornu’s resignation in October.

To create time to implement Bougival, the French State had proposed to delay, once again, New Caledonia’s provincial elections. Originally scheduled for May 2024, the poll was delayed until December that year, after riots erupted on May 13 and there was six months of clashes between Kanak protestors and French security forces. Late last year, the elections were again delayed from December 2024 until November 30, 2025.

Then, under the Bougival process, the French State and a majority of parliamentary groups in New Caledonia proposed to delay this November’s vote until May/June 2026, in order to create time to “unfreeze” the local electoral rolls (in a Congress of New Caledonia vote last month, the only opposition to this delay came from the UC-FLNKS parliamentary group).

France’s crisis delays legislation

Changes to the laws governing New Caledonia must pass through a lengthy and complex series of bills in the French National Assembly and Senate – and if legislation is not passed before 1 November this year, the 30 November elections must proceed using the existing electoral rolls.

Since early September, however, legislative action in Paris has been disrupted by the collapse of two governments. Speaking before the resignation of Prime Minister Lecornu, leader of the New Caledonian anti-independence party Calédonie ensemble Philippe Gomès said: “One must truly hope that these elections will not be held in November and that there will be time to finalise Bougival.”

Recognising the ongoing support for independence amongst most indigenous Kanak, Gomès also said: “There will be no Bougival agreement if we cannot integrate the UC-FLNKS into the process.”

With New Caledonia still reeling from post-conflict disruption of key services like health, education and public transport, Gomès laid the blame on Paris: “It is first and foremost the fault of the French State. It is the State that failed to foster political dialogue to prevent 13 May. It is also the French State that was unable to prepare the security forces in sufficient numbers.”

For New Caledonia, Manuel Valls was the key driver of the Bougival negotiations for a political statute to replace the 1998 Noumea Accord. Beyond the proposed electoral reforms, Valls set out a tight timetable to implement the Bougival agreement, which the same legislation required to pass through the French Senate and National Assembly, before a joint sitting of both houses of parliament. This would then go to a referendum in New Caledonia in February for adoption.

This timetable was already ambitious, even though key leaders of the French Senate and National Assembly had committed to prioritise passage of laws affecting New Caledonia. Now, with the collapse of the Bayrou government on September 8 and the Lecornu government just 27 days later, the legislative timetable has been blown out of the water.

Sébastien Lecornu had pledged that draft legislation to delay New Caledonia’s elections would go to the first meeting of his new Council of Ministers. But now he’s gone, his ministers are in caretaker mode, and France is in crisis.

New Caledonia’s Nicolas Metzdorf, a Loyalist deputy in the National Assembly, thanked Lecornu for mentioning New Caledonia in his resignation speech as an “urgent matter,” and noted ongoing talks between the Élysée presidential palace and the Prime Minister’s office in rue de Matignon.

In a Facebook post, Metzdorf said: “The Élysée and Matignon are now examining whether an emergency procedure for adopting the law postponing the provincial elections could be carried out by a government that’s resigned. The goal remains to organise a consultation of New Caledonians regarding the Bougival agreement. In any case, things today are clearly not settled and are evolving by the hour.”

What’s next?

As Islands Business goes to press, there are talks in Paris to discuss a way forward (in a fast moving and unpredictable situation, things may have changed again by the time you read this!).

However, options are limited. President Macron could appoint a new Prime Minister, but without a governing majority in the French legislature, this person will find it hard to avoid the same fate as Barnier, Bayrou and Lecornu. The French President could dissolve the current parliament and announce new National Assembly elections (though proroguing the legislature for weeks would delay budgetary negotiations and doom the Bougival timetable). The other option is increasingly debated in France – that President Macron resigns, 18 months before the next presidential elections scheduled for May 2027.

Until this gridlock in Paris is resolved, the parliamentary chaos will continue to impact the three French collectivities in the Pacific, as well as French colonies in other oceans of the world. It is also sharpening debate about French colonialism, and the ongoing call for self-determination and political sovereignty.

Last week, President Macron invited the leaders of France’s overseas dependencies to discuss the “evolution of statutes” in their islands. After the dinner, President of French Polynesia Moetai Brotherson called for “the opening of a multilateral discussion” on independence in Mā’ohi Nui, stating: “Autonomy is a status in which one should not become complacent.”

In New Caledonia, Pierre Chanel Tutugoro – leader of the UC-FLNKS group in the Congress of New Caledonia – has called on France “to suspend any unilateral implementation of the post-Bougival framework. The establishment of an impartial framework is essential before any resumption of discussions on the future of our country, as the security and peace of New Caledonia and of the Pacific region depend on it.”

The FLNKS is again looking for support from the international community. Writing last week to the Pacific Islands Forum, the Melanesian Spearhead Group, and the United Nations Special Committee on Decolonisation, Tutugoro called for “the immediate establishment of a joint facilitation mechanism under the auspices of the United Nations and the Pacific Islands Forum.”

“Such a mechanism would supervise a cycle of inclusive dialogues, open to all components of our society, including youth, women, customary authorities, and economic actors,” Tutugoro wrote. “It would ensure that discussions are conducted transparently, under the authority of respected international guarantors. It would help restore confidence, prevent further violence, and guarantee that the future of Kanaky – New Caledonia is determined freely, in full conformity with international law.”