LEGISLATION to implement a new political statute for New Caledonia has passed its first hurdle, adopted by the French Senate in a 215 – 41 vote. However, the proposed reform is meeting growing resistance from independence supporters and many French parliamentarians.
On February 24, French Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu personally intervened before the Senate, urging support for his government’s legislation that aims to replace the 1998 Noumea Accord – entrenched in the French Constitution – with a new political statute for New Caledonia.
However, this week’s endorsement in the Senate, a conservative upper house dominated by the Right, does not guarantee easy passage in the National Assembly, which must now debate the bill in late March. The policy of the French Socialist Party, which abstained in the Senate vote, will be crucial in the coming weeks.
Lecornu warned senators that if the legislation were rejected, it would be “the first time that Parliament had refused to act as notary for an agreement reached between New Caledonian parties.” But his statement ignores the lack of consensus in New Caledonia around this process, unlike previous statutes such as the 1988 Matignon-Oudinot Accords and the 1998 Noumea Accord.
The main independence coalition, Front de Libération Nationale Kanak et Socialiste (FLNKS), has repeatedly criticised the legislation’s proposal for the creation of a State of New Caledonia within the French Republic, calling instead for full and sovereign independence.
In a major public intervention, FLNKS objections to the law have been echoed by Paul Neaoutyine, leader of the pro-independence Parti de Libération Kanak (Palika). The day before the Senate vote, the veteran Kanak politician openly condemned the content of the bill, even though it is supported by his own party. Neaoutyine criticised the government legislation that “marks a break with and a step backwards from the Noumea Accord and closes the door to full sovereignty for New Caledonia.”
In a Le Monde interview, Neaoutyine added: “The Bougival agreement formalises internal and external federalism, a status of autonomy within France that is intended to be permanent. I do not see how this could be consistent with the Noumea Accord. With this new agreement, we are moving in the opposite direction, subordinating the Noumea Accord to the Bougival agreement.”
The current constitutional reform being considered by the French parliament aims to translate the July 2025 Bougival Accord and the accompanying January 2026 Elysée-Oudinot Accord into law. The legislation must be approved in a series of parliamentary votes: after the Senate’s approval this week, it must go to the National Assembly in late March or early April. If approved by the French legislature, it must then win a 3/5 majority in a joint sitting of both houses in late April or May, before a scheduled referendum in New Caledonia in June.
However, there is growing opposition to this timetable, and the Lecornu government is desperately trying to shore up support for the National Assembly vote, despite calls for delay, dialogue, and new elections.
Debates in the independence movement
Neaoutyine’s rare public intervention has highlighted divisions in Palika, the leading party in the Union Nationale pour l’Indépendance (UNI) parliamentary group in New Caledonia’s Congress.
Palika and the Union Progréssiste en Mélanésie (UPM) both withdrew from the main independence coalition FLNKS in 2024, critical of the choice of Union Calédonienne (UC) politician Christian Tein as FLNKS president. They also differed with the UC’s repeated refusal to negotiate with the French State and Loyalist leaders during 2021-24.
During talks in early 2025 led by then Overseas Minister Manuel Valls, UNI leaders joined anti-independence Loyalists and other parties to negotiate and endorse the Bougival and Elysée-Oudinot Accords, even though the UC and wider FLNKS have now opposed both agreements.
In recent months, the French government and anti-independence politicians have sought to exacerbate this division, counterposing “moderate” Kanak (UNI) against “extremists” (UC-FLNKS). But Neaoutyine’s public intervention highlights growing criticism of Bougival amongst his own supporters. A new network, Unité du people en Kanaky (UPK), has been formed amongst dissident members of Palika, UPM, and wider community groups, who are opposed to the current process. The veteran politician is also reading the mood amongst many Kanak voters, as New Caledonians prepare to vote in local council elections on 15 March.
Highlighting the advances of the 1998 Noumea Accord for the Kanak people, Neaoutyine has bluntly condemned France’s former Interior and Overseas Minister Gérald Darmanin, who coordinated efforts in early 2024 to force through changes to the electoral rolls for New Caledonia’s provincial elections.
The French government has long sought to expand voting rights to thousands of French nationals, without a consensus on the issue amongst all major parties in New Caledonia. But for Neaoutyine, “the issue of the electorate has always been a sensitive one. Since 2017, the FLNKS has decided to open up the electoral rolls to locally born New Caledonians, proof that the independence movement is not closed to compromise. But without consensus, the state will reap nothing, except what it sowed in May and June 2024” (when riots and clashes erupted across the capital Noumea, leading to 15 deaths, 2500 arrests, and a shattered economy).
The Kanak politician said Darmanin’s failed efforts in 2024 demonstrate three things: “One, that the French State has ceased to be impartial and has aligned itself with the radical discourse of the Loyalists, who give bad advice. Second, that without consensus and genuine dialogue, the French State is headed for failure. Third, that it bears full responsibility for plunging the country into chaos.”
Neaoutyine has served as president of New Caledonia’s Northern Province since it was first created in 1999. However, he now criticises the Bougival Accord’s proposal to transfer more powers from the Government of New Caledonia to the three provinces, including fiscal and taxation powers. For Neaoutyine, “the foundations for a partition of the country are being laid. I cannot accept this. It is not in line with the Noumea Accord to move in this direction: a Southern Province redrawn according to its selfish needs in order to remain part of France.”
Finding the numbers
Amid growing criticism, the tight timetable to implement each step in the proposed constitutional reform is under pressure. France’s Overseas Minister Naïma Moutchou has acknowledged this opposition but argues “stopping the constitutional bill in its tracks means closing the door for good” on the Bougival process. Amidst calls to amend or abandon the law, Moutchou pleaded that “we must give this imperfect process a chance.”
Despite this, the legislation faces criticism across the spectrum in the National Assembly, from the Left-wing La France Insoumise (LFI) to the extreme-Right Rassemblement National (RN) – though not for the same reasons.
André Rougé is a Member of the European Parliament and serves as the RN delegate for overseas France. Last month, Rougé said the current process “firmly places the territory on the path to independence.”
“This supplementary [Elysée-Oudinot] agreement actually marks a setback for the interests of New Caledonia and its inhabitants,” Rougé said. “The signing by the so-called ‘Loyalist’ Right of a text that organises France’s dispossession of the territory constitutes a betrayal. This signature only represents the fierce determination of Loyalist leaders to obtain, whatever the cost and even at the price of independence, the thawing of the ‘frozen’ electoral rolls necessary for their continued tenure in the sinecures of the provinces and assemblies.”
Lacking a majority in the National Assembly, Prime Minister Lecornu is gambling that the French Socialist Party will join with conservative parties aligned with President Macron to guarantee passage of the New Caledonia legislation through the legislature. With the legislation currently opposed by the Left’s New Popular Front and much of the Rassemblement National, the Lecornu government must rely on Socialist votes to succeed.
However in an op-ed in Le Monde, seven Socialist deputies – including the party’s first secretary Olivier Faure and the president of the Socialist group in the National Assembly Boris Vallaud – said they will not support the legislation as it stands: “The draft constitutional bill on New Caledonia, which will be submitted to parliament….is fraught with threats and dangers, at a time when the territory is undergoing an unprecedented economic and social crisis.”
Their decision to oppose the current legislation means it will be hard to obtain the 60% qualified majority required for adoption in the National Assembly, and the 3/5 majority of senators and deputies required at the joint sitting at the Congress in Versailles.
In their statement, the PS leaders criticised President Macron and the Lecornu government for forging ahead with a new statute for New Caledonia in the face of opposition from the FLNKS: “There can be no lasting solution that ensures peace, stability, and development in New Caledonia without a consensual and inclusive agreement. Despite the current empty chair policy of Union Calédonienne (UC)-FLNKS, it is not possible to leave them out of this agreement.”
The PS statement also criticises the Bougival and Elysée-Oudinot Accords for refusing an automatic accession of sovereignty for New Caledonia after the transfer of the remaining sovereign powers from Paris to Noumea (defence, policing and courts, currency, foreign affairs). The agreements only call for further discussions after the transfer of powers, but the PS stresses that “it should be clear that, at the end of this process, the transfer of the last remaining sovereign power would result in New Caledonia gaining full sovereignty and international legal status.”
Palika leader Paul Neaoutyine has echoed these concerns: “I would add that the transfer of sovereign powers, in order to be effective, will have to overcome a whole series of insurmountable obstacles, and that the question of the country’s full sovereignty is not even mentioned.”
“For me, there is no continuity between the Noumea Accord and Bougival-Elysée-Oudinot,” he added. “I do not underestimate the symbolic significance of the creation of a State of New Caledonia, but the Bougival Accord clearly stipulates that this state exists only within the French Republic and that this organisation is not transitional but permanent. The same applies to New Caledonian nationality, which is subordinate to French nationality.”
The proposed law has also met with veiled criticism from the previous Overseas Minister Manuel Valls (a former Prime Minister who deserted the Socialist Party to join President Macron’s Ensemble party).
From early 2025, Valls succeeded in bringing all New Caledonian parties together for discussions on the new agreement. He nearly forged a consensus at Deva in May 2025, but the deal was scuttled by The Loyalists, who opposed his proposal for a form of free association. Valls then organised further talks at Bougival in France last July, which created the framework text known as the Bougival Accord. However, Valls was dumped from the second Lecornu government, as the Bougival Accord was combined with the Elysée-Oudinot Accord, a “supplementary agreement” developed during talks initiated by President Macron in January.
Valls now questions whether the Lecornu government has the numbers to pass the constitutional legislation through both houses: “I’m in favour of Bougival’s success. But I’m realistic about the difficult conditions. I hope that constitutional reform will pass, even though I can count and I have my doubts.”
Promoting a form of free association for New Caledonia, Valls stated: “Sovereignty in New Caledonia is inevitable. Let us prepare for it as best we can, because otherwise, outright independence and violence will prevail. Everyone will have lost everything.”
Politics clouds debate
The whole debate around New Caledonia’s future is clouded by political manoeuvring in both Paris and Noumea.
As President Macron ends his second term next year, the French presidential elections are scheduled in May 2027. Many of the players in the current debate – including Lecornu and Valls – are considering whether to run for the presidency, and New Caledonia is low on the agenda at a time of budgetary crisis and political division in France.
Before the current bill can go to the National Assembly, municipal elections must be held across France on 15 March. These local council elections in New Caledonia will show the balance of forces within and between all parties, including the long-running contest between Palika, UC, and other independence parties on town councils in the Kanak-majority Northern and Loyalty Islands provinces.
The fate of the current Bougival process will also determine the date for the next elections for New Caledonia’s three provincial assemblies and Congress. Originally scheduled for May 2024, the elections have been delayed three times and are currently scheduled for June this year. But the government’s legislation aims to delay the polls again to a date before 20 December, to allow time to change the regulations on who can vote. This redefinition of New Caledonian citizenship will add thousands of French voters to the rolls – the very issue that triggered the 2024 conflict – requires changes to the constitution.
The FLNKS has called for the elections to be held now, clarifying the support for each political movement, and opening the way for renewed dialogue on a political statute. This is now echoed by the French Socialist Party, which has stated that “if the constitutional revision is not successful, provincial elections should therefore be scheduled. With the new Congress of New Caledonia, discussions must resume without delay, both on essential economic and social reforms and on the institutional project.”
This issue of elections was raised during the Senate debate by New Caledonia’s two Senators in Paris: Kanak politician Robert Xowie, a member of UC and the FLNKS, and Georges Naturel, a member of the anti-independence party Rassemblement.
On the Senate floor, Xowie criticised the government’s legislation and called for new elections rather than continuing with a process that doesn’t have the numbers: “Rather than wasting New Caledonians’ time, I propose that provincial elections be held as soon as possible so that a new legitimacy can engage in calm discussions.”
As a dissident spirit within his own political party, Georges Naturel also called for new elections before July instead of the referendum proposed in the legislation: “In the highly unlikely event that this constitutional amendment is successful, I cannot imagine the difficulties your government will face in organising the local referendum provided for in the Bougival Accord.”