New Caledonia (Sui Generis Collectivity, France) (2024)

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Nouvelle-Calédonie

French national flag - Image by Željko Heimer, 22 September 2001

Presentation of New Caledonia
- Geography
- Early history (until 1946)
- Recent history and evolution of the status of New Caledonia
Status of the flag
Joint hosting of the French and FLNKS flags

See also:

New Caledonia: Index of all pages
France

Presentation of New Caledonia

Geography

New Caledonia (196,836 inhabitants in 1996; 18,575 sq. km) is a Frenchsui generis collectivity located in the South Pacific, 1,500 km east of Australia and 1,700 kmnorth of New Zealand. New Caledonia is made mostly of a main islandcalled la Grande Terre (the Greater Land, 400 x 50 km, locally known asle Caillou - the Stone) and the archipelago of Îles Loyauté.
The two main ethnic groups in New Caledonia are the nativeMelanesians (Kanaks), that represent 44.1 % of the population, and theEuropeans (called Caldoches when descending from the French colonists,otherwise called Métropolitains - Métros - or Zoreilles), that represent 34.1% of the population. The other ethnic groups arePolynesians from Wallis and Futuna (9%), Indonesians (2.6%), otherPolynesians (2.5%), Viet Namese (1.4%) and Ni-Vanuatu (1.1%).

Early history (until 1946)

New Caledonia was most probably settled by Melanesians coming fromMalaysia c. 5000 BP. More than 3000 BP, other immigrants came from theSolomon and Vanuatu islands; Polynesians might also have landed in New Caledonia from the Tonga, Samoa and Fiji islands.
On 5 September 1774, Captain James Cook (1728-1779), the firstEuropean to land in New Caledonia, moored during his second Pacificexpedition (1772-1775) in Balabio, in the north of the Grande Terre. Thelandscape reminded him his birth country, Scotland, called by theRomans Caledonia, and he named the territory New Caledonia. On 20September, he sailed to the southern end of the Grande Terre and discoveredPines Island, today Île des Pins. Other British sailors discovered the Loyalty Islands, named so because the islanders' loyalty; theislands were renamed in French Îles Loyauté.
Britain showed little interest for New Caledonia and did not attempt tocolonize it. In 1840, teachers from the London Missionary Societysettled on the Îles Loyauté; on 20 December 1843, a French Marist mission, supported by the government and the army, also settled there. The Protestant pastors and the Catholic missionaries then struggled,often violently, for the control of the island and the evangelizationof the population. In 1845, the British trader James Paddon purchasedthe Nou island from a local chief and founded a colony, which he soldto France in 1858.

The French sailors Bruny d'Entrecasteaux (1737-1793) and Huon deKermadec moored near the Île des Pins on 7 June 1792. Nothing morehappened until Jules Dumont d'Urville (1790-1842) was commissioned tomap the coasts of New Caledonia. French soldiers landed on the Grande Terrein 1844; following the slaughter of 12 French sailors by Melanesians,Emperor Napoléon III ordered Counter Admiral Febvrier-Despointes totake possession on the name of France of the Grande Terre (24 September1853) and the Île des Pins (29 September 1853).
From 1853 to 1860, New Caledonia was incorporated to the Établissem*ntsfrançais de l'Océanie, administrated from Tahiti. In 1863, the colonial government forbid the teaching of any language but French, mostly tolimit the influence of the British pastors. Captain Tardy de Montravelfounded the colony of Port-de-France, renamed Nouméa in 1866 to avoidconfusion with Fort-de-France in Martinique. Colonization started veryslowly, so that the colonial administration decided to grant pieces ofland to newcomers; the spoliation of the native started in 1855, whenthe most fertile lands were declared "unoccupied" and granted to thecolonists.
From 1860 to 1885, the territory was ruled by an omnipotent Governorhardly controlled by the very remote French authorities. In 1864,Governor Gillain (1862-1870) unilaterally proclaimed the incorporationof Îles Loyauté to New Caledonia to get rid of the Britishmissionaries; the proclamation was later confirmed by the Frenchgovernment.

Colonization, however, was about to fail. As he did in French Guiana, Napoléon III set up in New Caledonia a penal colony, as provisioned by the Law of30 May 1854 prescribing the transportation of criminals intothe colonies. Due to its remote and isolated location, New Caledoniawas used to lock political prisoners. Like in Guiana and toinsure populating, the released prisoners were forced to stay on theisland as many years as thay had been sentenced, too. The first group of250 convicts landed in New Caledonia in May 1864. More than 4,300political prisoners were jailed on the territory after the insurrectionof the Commune de Paris in 1871. They were joined by thousands ofAlgerian Arabs and Berbers who had revolted the same year in theeastern part of Algeria. However, the majority of the convicts wereFrench criminals; from 1864 to its closure in 1897, the penal colonyhoused more than 20,000 prisoners. In 1870, Nouméa had only 300inhabitants, including 100 seamen.
After the amnisty laws voted in 1879 and 1880, most of the releasedconvicts came back to Europe. The colonial administration decided togrant to "the most deserving" a "supreme award", that is a piece ofland.
The populating of the territory was indeed boosted by the nickelrush (1870), following the discovery of nickel ore by Jules Garnier in1863. The incorporation of Alsace-Moselle to Germany also favouredemigration to New Caledonia. Article 4 of Decree of 27 May 1884 statedthat a piece of land would be granted for free to every (French) emigrant, made of a village plot, a crop plot and a pasture plot.Voluntary emigration, however, was not very efficient and GovernorFeillet decided to "import" 500 families, the so-called colonsFeillet from European France in 1894. The SLN (Société Le Nickel),founded in 1880, attracted from 1895 to 1900 a lot of immigrants fromIndia and Java, and later Viet Namese. The immigration did not stopduring the 20th century, especially with the arrival of Pieds-noirsexpelled from Algeria after the independence and of Polynesians fromWallis and Futuna, who are today in greater number in New Caledoniathan in Wallis and Futuna.
These successive waves of immigration increased the spoliation of theMelanesians, who progressively lost their land, underground andculture.

Recent history and evolution of the status of New Caledonia

The infamous Code de l'Indigénat, which ruled all the French coloniesand denied any elementary right to the native populations, waspromulgated in 1887 and abolished only on 7 April 1946. Spoliationcaused revolts of the Melanesians in 1878 and 1917; repression wasfiercy and the local leaders were exiled on the Île des Pins.
In 1956, the Deferre framework law (loi-cadre) created the status ofoverseas territory (territoire d'outre-mer). The territory wasgranted a significant autonomy and was ran by a Government Councilpresided by the High Commissioner of the Republic. The main politicalparty was then a pluri-ethnic, autonomist party called Unioncalédonienne, founded in 1953 with the motto "Two colours, a singlepeople". In the 1960s, the nickel crisis and the incrased immigrationfrom Wallis and Vanuatu (then called the New Hebrides) broke theconsensus: the Melanesians reclamed the independence of the territoryand opposed to the loyalists, who wanted to remain part of France. Theloyalists joined the Rassemblement pour la Calédonie dans la République(RPCR), founded by Jacques Lafleur on the model of Jacques Chirac'sRPR, whereas the Independentist Front was the first step towards theFront National de Libération Kanak Socialiste, founded in August 1984 by Jean-Marie Tjibaou.

The political crisis broke out in 1984-1985 with a series of riots,demonstrations and ambushes, and the proclamation of the state ofemergency. The self-determination referendum organized in 13 September1987 was boycotted by 94% of the Kanaks. The pressure did not stopincreasing; in spring 1988, the independentists took 27 gendarmeshostages in the island of Ouvéa. Prime Minister Jacques Chirac orderedthe assault just before the second round of the French presidentialelection; the result was the death of 19 independentists, fourgendarmes and two soldiers. Chirac's successor, the Socialist MichelRocard, was able to convince the two historical leaders Lafleur andTjibaou to negotiate; the Matignon agreement were signed on 26 June1988 and approved in November 1988 by referendum. Once again for pettypolitical reasons, Chirac called for abstention; however, theagreement was approved by 80% of the voters. The new statusprescribed by the Matignon agreement stated that a referendum on theorganization of the territory should be organized ten years later. On 4May 1989, during the ceremony celebrating the end of the mourning ofthe Kanaks killed in Ouvéa, the leaders Jean-Marie Tjibaou and YeiwénéYeiwéné were murdered by a Kanak extremist.

In 1998, the Socialist Prime Minister Lionel Jospin organized thenegotiation of a new agreement between Jacques Lafleur and RochWamytan, representing the FLNKS. The Nouméa agreement, signed on 5May 1998, prescribed a new status for New Caledonia, which is todaya sui generis Collectivity and no longer a Territory. The Organic Law of 19March 1999 (Loi organique relative à la Nouvelle-Calédonie, #99-209, 19March 1999, published in the Journal Officiel on 21 March 1999) grantednew institutions to New Caledonia: the Congress, the Government, theCustomary Senate and the Economic and Social Council. On 1 January2000, several executive competences were transferred to the Governmentof New Caledonia. The three main points of the new status are thecreation of the Caledonian citizenship, defined by the right of vote atthe provincial elections; the right allowed to New Caledonia to havesome international action in the Pacific; and the right granted to theCongress to vote local laws (lois de pays).
The self-determination referendum on the status of New Caledonia isscheduled to 2014; all people having been living in New Caledonia forat least 20 years will be electors.

Sources:

Ivan Sache, 27 March 2006

Status of the flag

Like in other French overseas possessions, the only official national flag inNew Caledonia is the French Tricolore flag. There are, however,provisions for the adoption of local symbols in the current status ofNew Caledonia (as it is the case for French Polynesia).

The Nouméa Agreement, signed on 5 May 1998, states:

1. The Kanak identity
1.5. Symbols
Identification symbols for the country, name, flag, anthem, motto,banknote design, shall be searched in common in order to express theKanak identity and the future shared among all.
The Constitutional Law on New Caledonia shall include the possibilityof changing the name of the country, by a Local Law adopted byqualified majority.
A mention of the name of the country could be added on the identitydocuments as a sign of citizenship.

The Constitutional Law, signed on 19 March 1999 and prescribing the currentstatus of New Caledonia, states:

Article 5
New Caledonia shall determine freely the identity symbols allowing toshow its personality beside the national emblem and the symbols of theRepublic. It can decide to change its name.
Such decisions shall be taken in the conditions fixed by Chapter II of Title III [that is by a Local Law] and by a majority of the 3/5 of the members of the Congress.

Quite dormant since then, the search for a common flag was subsequently reactivated, probably not by pure chance. In the 2012 French legislative elections, Rassemblement-UMP, led by Pierre Frogier, lost the two seats allocated to New Caledonia to Calédonie Ensemble, led by Philippe Gomès.
In April 2012, the representatives Simon Loueckhote (one of thesignatories of the Nouméa Agreement and founder of LMD, a splinter of R-UMP) and Philippe Michel (Calédonie Ensemble) proposed to establish a "flag special commission"; the proposal was accepted by all thepolitical parties, except the Worker's Party.

The Congress of New Caledonia adopted on 27 December 2012 Decision No.241 (text), published on 29 December 2012 in the official gazette,"establishing a special commission tasked to collectively search forthe flag of the country".
Article 1 quotes Article 1.5 of the Nouméa Agreement (see above).Article 2 states that the commission shall be composed of tworepresentatives of each political group and one representative of eachpolitical party seating at the Congress.
The 14 members of the Commission were appointed by Decision No. 255 of10 January 2013, published on 24 January 2013 in the official gazette. The commission, jointly presided by four members ofthe political groups represented at the Congress, Léontine Ponga(RUMP), Nadia Héo (Palika), Damien Yéwéné (UC) and Philippe Michel (Calédonie Ensemble), was inaugurated on 16 April 2013 (official communiqué, 16 April 2013; Nouvelle-Calédonie 1^ère, 16 April 2013).

Ivan Sache & Pascal Vagnat, 19 August 2013