Kanak cultural leader Emmanuel Tjibaou has been elected as president of Union Calédonienne, the oldest and largest political party in New Caledonia.
His election came at the 43rd Union Calédonienne congress, held last weekend at Mia tribe near Canala. Following last week’s announcement by outgoing UC president Daniel Goa that he would not seek re-election, Tjibaou was the only candidate for the party presidency.
At age 48, Tjibaou symbolises the rise of a new generation of political leadership in the Kanak independence movement.
His predecessor Daniel Goa, aged 71, had been re-elected every year as UC president since November 2012. The former factory worker had led the party through tumultuous times, including three referendums on self-determination between 2018 and 2021, the Covid pandemic and the rise and fall of New Caledonia’s crucial nickel industry.
Most recently, UC joined with other independence forces to create the CCAT network, which opposed French President Emmanuel Macron’s plans for electoral reform, through a proposed constitutional amendment to add thousands of extra voters to the electoral rolls for New
Caledonia’s provincial assemblies and national Congress. After months of peaceful protest, the draft legislation came before the French National Assembly on 13 May, triggering five months of rioting and clashes between Kanak protesters and French gendarmes, riot squads and anti-terrorist police.
Now, Macron has formally abandoned his failed policy, and elections for the three provincial assemblies and Congress have been delayed until November 2025. This has opened the way for negotiations next year about New Caledonia’s political status, and a new statute to replace the 1998 Noumea Accord.
With UC calling for a pathway towards independence, the newly elected UC president will play a crucial role in coming discussions with the French State and New Caledonia’s anti-independence parties. Speaking on TV the night of his election, Tjibaou stressed: “Our objective remains unchanged: access to full sovereignty.”
“However we know that this requires in-depth discussions with others,” he added. “We supported the postponement of the provincial elections to allow time for dialogue and the development of an agreement. We will go to the discussion table with a ‘negotiation basket’, including fundamental elements: discussions on the pathway to full sovereignty, but also concrete commitments to stabilise our economy. We cannot negotiate on an empty stomach.”
The cycle of history
From Tiendanite tribe near Hienghène in New Caledonia’s Northern province, Emmanuel Tjibaou follows his elders into the leadership of one of the Pacific islands’ oldest political parties, first founded in 1953.
His father Jean-Marie Tjibaou was a leading figure in the Kanak cultural renaissance of the 1970s, who organised the Melanesia 2000 festival in 1975. In May 1977, at the Union Calédonienne congress in Bourail, Jean-Marie Tjibaou and other Kanak leaders transformed party policy towards support for political independence, rather than autonomy within the French Republic. UC was later joined by other pro-independence parties to form the Front indépendantiste (FI) in March 1981.
In September 1984, the charismatic Kanak leader then co-founded the independence coalition Front de Libération Nationale Kanak et Socialiste (then and now, UC is the largest member of the FLNKS).
The choice of Canala as the site for last weekend’s 43rd UC congress was no accident. Forty years ago this month, then-UC secretary-general Eloi Machoro launched a boycott of local elections in New Caledonia, symbolically smashing a ballot box with an axe at Canala Town Hall.
The generation of leaders that transformed UC into an independence party were decimated in following years: its first secretary-general Pierre Declercq was assassinated by an unknown gunman in September 1981; his successor Eloi Machoro shot down by French GIGN police sharpshooters in January 1985; and Jean-Marie Tjibaou and Yeiwene Yeiwene both assassinated by Djubelli Wea in May 1989.
In the aftermath of these deaths, Emmanuel Tjibaou played a leading role in reconciling the families and clans of the martyred leaders. He later served as the director of the Jean-Marie Tjibaou Cultural Centre, the nation’s premier arts and culture complex in the capital Noumea. After a decade focusing on cultural work in New Caledonia’s northern province, Emmanuel Tjibaou has only recently turned to political office.
Earlier this year, Tjibaou ran for one of New Caledonia’s two seats in the French National Assembly, winning the second-round poll on 7 July with 57% of the vote. It was the first time in 38 years that a pro-independence Kanak politician had won a seat in the French legislature. Tjibaou ran for the seat backed by his alternate Amandine Darras, campaigning in the second constituency which covers the northern part of the main island of Grande Terre.
The seat had previously been held by Nicolas Metzdorf, co-founder of the anti-independence party Générations NC. A fervent partisan of the French Republic, Metzdorf switched seats to run in New Caledonia’s first constituency in July’s elections, to draw on stronger anti-
independence sentiment in the Southern province. He won this National Assembly seat on 7 July.
As a leading member of the anti-independence Loyalist bloc in New Caledonia’s Congress, Metzdorf has a penchant for cowboy hats and stockwhips and, in past years, has relied on a strong base in the rural Caldoche community (descendants of the prisoners, indentured labourers and free settlers brought to New Caledonia in the 19th and early 20th century).
In contrast, the choice of Amandine Darras as Tjibaou’s running mate for the National Assembly was an important message to other communities, symbolising an alternative to Metzdorf’s macho, cowboy image. As a young woman of Caldoche heritage and a leading environmentalist and feminist, Darras reflects a new generation of non-indigenous New Caledonians who are looking towards a new political status.
After months of conflict, New Caledonians face a shattered economy and a level of uncertainty about the political future. But in an interview recorded on 1 October, Tjibaou reaffirmed the vision of building a common destiny for New Caledonia.
“We are one island,” he said. “The strength of our cultures is our diversity… We have 28 languages, but does this mean we have 28 different states within New Caledonia? No! It means there are 28 ways of interpreting how we relate to one another, to draw nourishment from this diversity. That’s the project that the independence movement has proposed ever since 1983. With the recognition of our right to self-determination, we’ve opened up to others, to the descendants of the prisoners, the Javanese [indentured labourers] and all those who came here, washed up on the shores of our land Le Caillou, to whom we said ‘now we must build the society with you’.”
Debate within FLNKS
This year’s FLNKS campaign for the French legislature drew extensive support from young people, including many who had been on the barricades during the five months of rioting and clashes between police and protestors that began on 13 May.
Winning both a National Assembly seat and now the UC presidency in the last five months, Tjibaou’s rapid political ascent symbolises the rise of a new generation of political leadership within the FLNKS and the mobilisation of young people born on the 21st century. His election comes, however, as the conflict and crisis of recent months has opened widespread debate within the independence movement about the way forward, amid criticism of UC and the CCAT activist network by other parties.
Two independence parties – Palika and UPM – have both suspended their involvement in FLNKS congresses and weekly meetings of the coalition’s Political Bureau. Palika leaders are critical of past UC policy on political status negotiations, and angry that an FLNKS Congress held at Koumac in August decided to open the coalition to membership for other independence parties, such as the Parti Travailliste, Dynamique Unitaire Sud and MNIS.
Last weekend’s UC Congress at Canala saw consolidation of a new team in the party’s executive, as long-serving figures like Gilbert Tyuienon lost office. Tjibaou will be backed by two Vice Presidents, Pierre-Chanel Tutugoro and Michaël Forrest (Tutugoro is head of the UC-FLNKS and Nationalists parliamentary group in New Caledonia’s Congress, and a former UC secretary-general; Forrest a member of the Government of New Caledonia, responsible for external affairs, youth, culture and sport). Dominique Fochi was re-elected as UC secretary-general, while Amandine Darras takes on the new role of deputy secretary-general.
Christian Tein has been re-confirmed as UC Commissioner General, even though he is currently in pre-trial detention in prison in Mulhouse in France, under investigation for alleged crimes committed as a leader of the CCAT network.
After his election, Emmanuel Tjibaou acknowledged the need for UC to reach out to its members and supporters, as well as other FLNKS partners, to better listen to and act on their concerns.
“In the Kanak language, as in French, there is a nuanced difference between hearing and listening,” he said. “Listening means translating people’s requests for change into action, understanding dysfunction and making corrections. The events of 13 May had an impact on everyone – political institutions, families, businesses. It is crucial today that we energise our party and respond to the aspirations expressed.”