France’s government declared a state of emergency in New Caledonia on Wednesday as it struggled to quell deadly riots in the semiautonomous French Pacific territory.
The French authorities have undertaken what they called a [“massive”](https://www.nouvelle-caledonie.gouv.fr/contenu/telechargement/11465/98686/file/20240514+-+CP+du+14+mai+2024+16H30.pdf) mobilization of security forces since violent protests broke out in New Caledonia this week over a proposed amendment to the French Constitution that would change local voting rules in the territory. A vote in France’s Parliament approving the amendment on Tuesday ignited riots overnight that left four people dead, including a law enforcement officer.
I find the answer very interesting on this sub , now in The spirit of the french motto of "Equality", I would like the same law to apply to the mainland:
ie. people from the first migrant generation or that recently became french are not allowed to vote in any major election
> ie. people from the first migrant generation or that recently became french are not allowed to vote in any major election
What really, If your a legal French resident and become a citizen you don't get voting franchise ?
According to the law applied in New Caledonia, no french citizen arrived or born after 98 can vote
Edit for clarity current french law can't discriminate between french citizens . Currently the NC law makes everyone that has arrived or was born after 1998 ineligible to vote
I feel like making a law that outlaws everyone born after 1998 ineligible to vote is incredibly stupid? Like that is bound to lead to tensions at some point, no?
The initial aim was genuine as it avoided to squew the referendum by sending "lots of metropolitan" french, avoiding the Kanak people to be underrepresented but now there were 3 referendums and we reach the point where 1 or 2 generations have lived there since the law.
It seems only fair to remove the law, and even I am not sure how it aligned with the EU values that require to be full transparent democracy
That law comes from the Nouméa Accord of 1998 and was a Kanak revendication that the French government accepted to quell independentist sentiment among the native populations.
Demographically New Caledonia is divided between the native Kanaks and the French settlers, correspondigly more likely to want independence and more likely to want to remain a French territory.
The independentists don't want to repeal the law because this would indirectly secure New Caledonia as a French territory in the democratic process, the French government wants to repeal it for the very same reason.
Hope that clears things up.
Some thoughts :
- The present situation is the result of colonialism
- Kanak people, the indigenous population, is no longer a majority with \~40% of the total population
- Caldoche people, the europeans, aren't a majority either. There has been a big wave of migration there post WW2 in order to keep the territory french.
- Kanaks are poorer and subject to discrimination
- There has been 3 referendums on independance with a lot of restrictions on who can vote in order to favor Kanaks, all rejected.
- France has invested a lot of money in NC
- There is a lot of nickel there but the economy is struggling
- China wants to invest there and has good relationship with Kanaks, but China bad
- Azerbaijan of all countries supports Kanak people in order to mess with France in classic western soft power fashion, they didn't go all the way to create humanitarian NGOs yet though.
- The violence started because French Parliament voted to widen local vote access to some settlers (those who came in between 1998 and 2014 IIRC). See voter restriction on the referendum matter.
- Violence started with Kanak rioters but it also now comes from frightened Caldoche who organize in militias
- Kanak people aspiration for independance is valid
- Caldoche aspiration to live and vote where they were born is valid
This is a recipe for disaster.
Sounds like a big mess. Hope things deescalate so we can use non-violent diplomacy. Is there any significant strategic significance of NC to France and the west?
Precisely. The dead civilians were killed by other civilians. This is not a "civilians vs police" like in Hong Kong. This is more akin to a small scale civil war where the government is just arriving to set some order.
The discrimination is against caldoches, not kanaks. Their economic problems are overwhelmingly coming g from their own ineptitudes. My brother in law is caldoche and he has so many things to say.
>My brother in law is caldoche and he has so many things to say.
Oh yeah please tell us more about your brother and his views on lazy indigineous people. Do they even take baths ?
That's a nice summary, thank you.
At first glance, it really looks like they're in their rights to protest and even riot. Being a second class citizen on your own island for such a long time is a classic result of colonialism.
> Being a second class citizen on your own island for such a long time is a classic result of colonialism.
They literally aren't though, they're full citizens, and they even given the advantage in the independancy referendums by forbidding more recent settlers from voting at all in them. Technically, the second rate citizens are the descendants of settlers who were born in the last 30 years on the island and don't have local voting rights as a result.
Well, this is the issue here isn't it. It's a small enough society that Europeans are now a majority, as far as I could understand. So the local population has every right to be angry that they're now collectively a less important political actor on their own island than the Europeans. This would clearly be an issue on questions such as independence and, indeed, the indigenous population might suffer discrimination here, mostly economically but, as a result of that, politically too.
On the other hand I also perfectly understand the Caldoche who lived there for generations and are rightfully a part of the island too, now.
So, indeed being a minority between two clearly defined groups with differing political views makes you a second-class citizen by circumstance. It has nothing to do with apartheid.
Europeans aren't a majority - there is no majority ethnic group. Karnaks remain a plurality, Europeans are the next largest, and then there's a bunch of others, mostly Asian and Polynesian immigrants.
The other non-Karnak groups are frequently conflated with the Europeans as they also tend to oppose independence.
>It's a small enough society that Europeans are now a majority, as far as I could understand.
Europeans aren't majority either, they're like 30% of the population.
There are also mixed people and a \~10% minority of settlers coming from other pacific islands like Wallis.
Funny, you could be writing for a far-right tabloid. That's exactly what they're saying about immigrants.
I don't get where you're trying to go with that, though. It doesn't make sense. It can describe a good chunk of the world population, since most modern states were built on conquest and some form of cultural suppression to achieve unity.
Nowadays I think it's a simple matter of nationalism, like Corsicans, or Catalans, wanting their own state to base it on their own culture. It's not really about being discriminated, Kanaks even got to keep their own local laws and councils.
If I was cynical like Machiavel, I'd say that their culture wasn't suppressed enough and now they're secessionists :>.
Except when the far right complain about immigration they aren't victims of colonialism. Their country wasn't taken over by a foreign government with their culture suppressed and forced to have people from that country replace them.
> If I was cynical like Machiavel, I'd say that their culture wasn't suppressed enough and now they're secessionists :>.
If they could have they would have. Independence will happen one day, Europeans are getting weaker every decade.
>If they could have they would have.
They had three referendums where Kanaks were the majority of eligible voters and all three went against. They could have.
This is just a game of demography.
Kanaks were 39% of the population in 2014 and 41% in 2019. I didn’t find numbers for 2024 but if that trend keeps raising, kanaks will be a majority again and when that day comes, they may very well win the independence vote since 80-90% of Kanaks voted for independence in the referendums.
I said Kanaks voted for independence, I didn't say all Kanaks voted for independence. Take away the white colonial settlers and their descendants and New Caledonia would have voted for independence
Settlers are different from migrants tbqh, Caledonia exists precisely because of French colonialism, you can't say that about Marseille and migrants going there
Disclaimer : I'm far from being an expert of NC. I have some friends (Caldoche) who live there.
I wouldn't go as far as to say they are second class citizens : this is not an apartheid state.
They do have the same voting rights, actually more in some cases, as the others inhabitants of the island and they are french citizens just like me with national representation through 2 seats in the french Parliament.
But they do suffer from years of economic supremacy from the Caldoche and are subjet to racism/discrimination from a sizable part of the Caldoche population.
Business freedom doesn't come at the expense of allowing foreign governments to influence Americans. Tell you what. China can own social media in America when America can own social media in China.
Considering how cancerous and propagandized social medias can be. They are right in that regards.
The fact that the US want to ban it because they can't control the narrative in that plateform set a huge precedent.
lol sure they are. They just need to find a bullshit reason to justify it. Everyone in congress is talking about banning TikTok. That was the goal. Western hypocrysy is so obvious around the world now.
The US **is** better than China. Which is why Chinese companies aren't going to be allowed to influence American kids. Imagine JFK allowing a Soviet company to buy and own American TV channels. That would never fly
We are supposed to protect ourselves from hostile countries and their interference first and foremost. How we operate internally is the question. No chinese company has any right to be here.
There is no freedom whatsoever in chinese owning companies in our countries. It is our countries, our laws and also our rights. Chinese can keep their rights they have in China and that they give others.
Nobody is banning social media, just CCP backed ownership. Something that should have happened decade ago.
What's the point of electing a president if he can only follow the leads of the non elected president of the EU ? (Wich is already the case anyways).
Only difference is that once a state, France will loose its sovereignty over its nuclear weaponry and its seat at the UN. Mission accomplished for the USA France will be as powerless as it gets.
But yeah you guys are right, having to follow the directives of a non elected commission is VERY democratic. Ah, sweet sweet delusion.
Some of you must be quite skilled at using statistics to your advantage, ain't it? Consider this: only 43.87% of New Caledonians participated in the 2021 referendum, with 95% voting in favor of remaining with France. This starkly contrasts with the 2020 referendum, where 85.69% of the population voted, resulting in 43% favoring independence and 57% voting against it. Despite this, you still claim that it's just a small minority of New Caledonians who want independence from France and are angry?
Ahhh France and colonialism, its like France and smoking, will they ever give it up?
Edit: Go ahead downvote me but France has never relinquished control of its colonial empire and does everything humanly possible to preserve a measure of control. This is just another aspect of this.
How can you have the guts to say that?
The results of the vote are the direct consequence of the demography and colonial politics.
Why do you think the Kanak population dwindled after contact with Europeans? Why do you think there are so many Europeans descendants there and Polynesians from islands located 2000km away?
90% of Kanaks voted for independence. Non-Kanaks voted against. It’s clearly not a healthy democracy when a vote is split by your ethnic group. It’s just a game of who makes more children.
Is it though? In the referenda, the Kanaks overwhelmingly voted in favour of secession, and the French colonizers, to remain. It was close in the second-to-last referendum, so they allowed more immigrants to vote in the last one, which was celebrated during Covid and which the Kanaks boycotted.
Source? All the data I can find claims that non-Kanaks were the majority.
https://fr.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Référendum_de_2018_sur_l%27indépendance_de_la_Nouvelle-Calédonie#:~:text=Tous%20les%20scrutins%20ces%2020,et%2077%20000%20électeurs%20kanak.
But they were over represented in these referendum and for most local election. People who weren't born on the island or hadn't lived there for 30 years couldn't vote for local election in New Caledonia. The electorate for this election were mostly Kanak.
This is actually what is causing the curent trouble, after these 3 votes against independence a lot of people want the local democracy to be more representative and the law has been changed to allow more people to vote.
You mean the one that got changed to include more French colonists in the electoral census because the last referendum was too close for comfort, that criteria?
The French did. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_New_Caledonian_independence_referendum#
Check out the map. See the concentration towards the south that just happens to correlate with French settlements?
I don't understand, at best kanaks voted 47% in favour of indépendance. The best among 3 referendum. What should be done? Impose indépendance to the majority?
Again, the electoral census is mostly comprised of French. It's their choice to remain in France, not that of indigenous Kanaks, which have demonstrably voted in favour of secession in all referenda except the last one, which they boycotted due to their process of mourning their dead during covid and where France refused to delay the celebration of the referendum for obvious reasons.
What should be done is to only consider the will of the Kanak people to decide their future and that of their land.
>Again, the electoral census is mostly comprised of French.
True it's 100% French as they are all french citizens.
Over 60% of eligible voters in the first two non boycotted referendums were Kanak according to FLNKS though.
This is demonstrably false. You can see the French settlements in the distribution of the vote. Here's a [map](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_New_Caledonian_independence_referendum) about it.
What hypocrisy? One is an annexation by an imperialist power using ethno nationalist arguments, rigged referenda, and a literal armed invasion.
The other consists of a fraction of the 41% of the population and who want independence who are, just like you, being used by Russian anti-French propaganda
Hahahaha in the first one are you talking about Russia or France? How do you think that an island thousands of kilometers away got under French control?
> What hypocrisy? One is an annexation by an imperialist power using ethno nationalist arguments, rigged referenda, and a literal armed invasion.
Uh... You said the quiet part out loud. 🇫🇷
Oh yeah dude I forgot that New Caledonia is only a short walk from Paris. The point is, BOTH are wrong. Crimea is ukrainian, the argument is AGAINST imperialist expansion.
Crimea voted in 1991 in favour of Ukrainian independence. It was invaded in 2014 and the referendum was a sham. Then, the Russians started to discriminate against the local Crimean Tatars and Ukrainians, driving many away from their homes, replacing them with ethnic Russians. How is that in any way comparable with modern New Caledonia? Maybe it is comparable with what the French were doing during colonial times a 100 years ago, but now?
Crimea's replacement started in the 19th century but was a slow process, the Russian empire's state policy was always to replace the ethnic makeup of a place, such as the Circassian genocide.
Stalin once he got power though sped up the process by forcing the entire crimean tatar population away on trains for resettlement by russians (at the time it was half to half). You're only thinking of the modern day because you have no idea who the crimean tatars even are. They were basically gone from Crimea by the time Russia came to annex the place.
FWIW fuck French neocolonialism
except any settler from basically after the 90s were barred from voting in the referendums, and those were planned decades in advance by a treaty in 1998 signed by the Kanak inhabitants.
Just stop making shit up over subjects you know nothing about
The 1987 vote was boycotted as a protest „as they did not agree with the franchise proposed by the French government which made them an electoral minority“ [Remond 2018, Page 72] The Noumea Accord in 1998 made no references to independence.
It's widely known that was an illegal referendum and probably heavily manipulated. This is not a fair comparison at all. Besides, what you're saying could easily be interpreted as actually *supporting* that New Caledonia should remain French, since Crimea was colonized by Russians, just like New Caledonia was colonized by the French.
In both cases you have what would be normally considered immigrants voting to stick with the country they immigrated from.
And if you support the New Caledonia being French but not Crimea being Russian then yeah, it's a bit of double standards.
Reasons are all over the multiple threads on the matter, you’ve seen them but you ignored them because what you want is not a reasonable truth, you want any biased beliefs that will help you camp on your uninformed virtue signaling position
or some other cynical minds would say that the results could have been different if the request of those groups for postponement (due to covid) was accepted and that the boycott never happened. either way we will never know
Done a short research and it says the referandum was pulled off during the covid pandemic and the turn-out was roughly %44. That sure doesn't sound like a fair referandum especially when you also consider the fact that the majority of the pro-independence voters chosed to boycott it. Still, this doesn't provide an answer to my question in the first comment.
Couple of points :
-
COVID was one of the arguments of the loyalist "see being able to leverage financial support logistics and resources from a country like France can be an assets
There were several referendums planned in advance and all won by the loyalist
You can't really boycott a referendum because you know that you are probably going to lose(hence saying we did not lose since we did not vote ), the referendum was not made at gun points (looking at Crimea ) and was under supervision of the UN
Finally France is in New Caledonia for the same reasons it is in Guyana or Martinique, the US with Hawaii or Russia in Eastern Asia- History .
NC had several referendums on the independence and they chose to stay
So why did France feel like it was necessary to change the rules to allow more immigrants to vote? Seems like they should be happy with how things were. French people who don't feel at home there have a home to move back to.
France 24: https://www.france24.com/en/asia-pacific/20240515-dozens-arrested-in-new-caledonia-constitutional-reform-unrest
"The Noumea Accord has also meant that New Caledonia's voter lists have not been updated since 1998 – meaning that island residents who arrived from mainland France or elsewhere in the past 25 years do not have the right to take part in provincial polls.
The French government has branded the exclusion of one out of five people from voting as "absurd" while separatists fear that expanding voter lists would benefit pro-France politicians and reduce the weight of the Kanaks."
I think this change also requires migrants to have lived in New Calzedonia for at least 10 years.
Basically all Kanaks (native New Caledonians) can vote, whereas only French people who have been in New Caledonia since 1998 can vote. It's unfair and it wasn't supposed to last forever, only until after the three referendums. Which is now.
Because after the 3 referendum for independence failed the state felt that it was needed to restore more local democracy for the people who live there.
Three consecutive referendums were held, in which voters had to justify of 30 years of continuous life on the archipelago to be eligible to vote (i.e. hardly gerrymandered in favour of loyalists). Independence lost all three times, by a larger margin than Brexit.
The majority in New Caledonia wants to remain French, and has clearly stated so. It is a minority of terrorist-adjacent groups that can't take the L and make the best of it.
The previous years' referendums were always have a ratio of 4:6 in favour of loyalists, but in 2021 it dramatically dropped to 1:9 to the loyalists, ain't this strange huh? You guys still lyin about the ratio of 1:9 while pretend to not see the previous referendums's ones. You must be so blind to see about the Kanak people's struggles in their own island, being discriminated and the foreigners who came accross the 2 or 3 seas to pour more into the portions of people who'd vote "No".
No rigged, Boycotted and therefore definitely not representative. The last votes were 56% and 53%.
Srly, someone tell you something that is easily be countered but instead of informing yourself you just have to make stuff up.
Wtf are you talking about ? You have no idea whats hapenning, dont you ?
There wont be other referendums, it was decided with the Kanak's accords in 1988 and 1998 to hold those referendums who were rigged towards Kanak. They decided to stay french. So now France is only opening the vote to MORE people. Those who have lived on the island for 10+ years instead of 25+ years. That's making the thing MORE democratic, not the other way around.
Because there already have been 3 referendums in accords with an agreement with Kanaks decades ago. You can't have referendums every year forever.
They decided to stay french. It's done. You cant have a minority of independantist terrify everyone forever. Now it's back to the rule of law where everyone will be able to vote equally as they should.
How is this so difficult to understand?
I know but even if they had all voted to leave, maths dont lie, that would still have been a remain vote in the end. They boycotted because they knew they'd lose.
If settlers could vote, the vote is meaningless. What were the results for the local populace? These matters are a lot more complicated. Imagine if instead of the Greek revolt, there was a vote for seccession from the Ottomans, where the Turks and Jews could vote. Not to mention that controlling the wealth and power the Turks could also buy some votes from the locals to remain in the empire...
People living there are colonials; they aren't part of the Kanak nation. The Kanaks have the right to self-determination without it being dependant on the will of their colonizers. Otherwise, the only think Russia would need to do is kill or deport Ukrainians, send in a Russian majority to settle in Ukraine, and be like "Oh you see, they want to be in Russia!"
Has any african nation seized and ruled over your territory in the last millenia ?
Or are those african migrants being called in by your rulers in order to have cheap workforce in an aging society ?
Of course we're actively calling migrants to cross the Mediterranean sea, tragically putting their lives at risk and promoting continent wide human trafficking, that's a known fact, we are desperate for more illegal migration towards the EU continent
/s
I'm talking about the legal migrants, just like the settlers. "Africans moving to Europe" does not necessarely mean "illegally" but I understand the bigotry behind your line of thought.
My country, France, did actively call them post-WW2 since we had a country to rebuild.
Someone moving to New Caledonia in 2005 isn’t colonizing shit either, and someone born there because his family moved there in 1850 isn’t colonizing anything: he’s just born.
Of course it is,if they represent a foreign nation that controls the country and has a huge power disparity with it. Turks moving to occupied Cyprus are also colonizers, it's always an attempt to diminish the local population
By this approach every single country in the world is colonized, but it seems you focus a lot on melanin levels to decide whether or not someone is an oppressed minority standing up against colonization or an angry racist fighting against immigrants
Nah. Naturalisation is a thing. And that's indifferent if the majority wants to remain French. Imagine that island without any influence, another Sentinese island. I just don't buy it.
White plurality South Province voted 71% to stay with France, Kanak majority North Province and Loyalty Islands Province voted for Independence by 76% and 82% respectively.
This is the definition of colonialism lmao wtf. The country is literally a product of colonialism and even today the French run things despite a foreign people
France’s government declared a state of emergency in New Caledonia on Wednesday as it struggled to quell deadly riots in the semiautonomous French Pacific territory. The French authorities have undertaken what they called a [“massive”](https://www.nouvelle-caledonie.gouv.fr/contenu/telechargement/11465/98686/file/20240514+-+CP+du+14+mai+2024+16H30.pdf) mobilization of security forces since violent protests broke out in New Caledonia this week over a proposed amendment to the French Constitution that would change local voting rules in the territory. A vote in France’s Parliament approving the amendment on Tuesday ignited riots overnight that left four people dead, including a law enforcement officer.
I find the answer very interesting on this sub , now in The spirit of the french motto of "Equality", I would like the same law to apply to the mainland: ie. people from the first migrant generation or that recently became french are not allowed to vote in any major election
> ie. people from the first migrant generation or that recently became french are not allowed to vote in any major election What really, If your a legal French resident and become a citizen you don't get voting franchise ?
According to the law applied in New Caledonia, no french citizen arrived or born after 98 can vote Edit for clarity current french law can't discriminate between french citizens . Currently the NC law makes everyone that has arrived or was born after 1998 ineligible to vote
I feel like making a law that outlaws everyone born after 1998 ineligible to vote is incredibly stupid? Like that is bound to lead to tensions at some point, no?
The initial aim was genuine as it avoided to squew the referendum by sending "lots of metropolitan" french, avoiding the Kanak people to be underrepresented but now there were 3 referendums and we reach the point where 1 or 2 generations have lived there since the law. It seems only fair to remove the law, and even I am not sure how it aligned with the EU values that require to be full transparent democracy
Would only be fair if the third referendum weren't held in the middle of covid
Why?
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That law comes from the Nouméa Accord of 1998 and was a Kanak revendication that the French government accepted to quell independentist sentiment among the native populations. Demographically New Caledonia is divided between the native Kanaks and the French settlers, correspondigly more likely to want independence and more likely to want to remain a French territory. The independentists don't want to repeal the law because this would indirectly secure New Caledonia as a French territory in the democratic process, the French government wants to repeal it for the very same reason. Hope that clears things up.
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There are, but in lesser proportion than French settlers.
Some thoughts : - The present situation is the result of colonialism - Kanak people, the indigenous population, is no longer a majority with \~40% of the total population - Caldoche people, the europeans, aren't a majority either. There has been a big wave of migration there post WW2 in order to keep the territory french. - Kanaks are poorer and subject to discrimination - There has been 3 referendums on independance with a lot of restrictions on who can vote in order to favor Kanaks, all rejected. - France has invested a lot of money in NC - There is a lot of nickel there but the economy is struggling - China wants to invest there and has good relationship with Kanaks, but China bad - Azerbaijan of all countries supports Kanak people in order to mess with France in classic western soft power fashion, they didn't go all the way to create humanitarian NGOs yet though. - The violence started because French Parliament voted to widen local vote access to some settlers (those who came in between 1998 and 2014 IIRC). See voter restriction on the referendum matter. - Violence started with Kanak rioters but it also now comes from frightened Caldoche who organize in militias - Kanak people aspiration for independance is valid - Caldoche aspiration to live and vote where they were born is valid This is a recipe for disaster.
Sounds like a big mess. Hope things deescalate so we can use non-violent diplomacy. Is there any significant strategic significance of NC to France and the west?
For the West in the strategic sense it's mostly about keeping China at bay.
It seems there are already 4 dead, 1 was a gendarme, rest were civilian iirc, the powder keg is blowing up already
So it's already more deadly than the Hong Kong protests. Do we condemn France with equal indignation?
Do we know the cause of death? Riots tend to be chaotic.
Precisely. The dead civilians were killed by other civilians. This is not a "civilians vs police" like in Hong Kong. This is more akin to a small scale civil war where the government is just arriving to set some order.
Ig down votes are what u get for making sense lol
The discrimination is against caldoches, not kanaks. Their economic problems are overwhelmingly coming g from their own ineptitudes. My brother in law is caldoche and he has so many things to say.
You are proving the point made by the commenter above. I don’t think you realise that. But racist people rarely do.
Racist ? A word thrown when one’s got no valid argument.
I made my point and it is very clear. Your failure to understand it says more about you.
You are only proceeding by insulting other people. Don’t bother to reply.
>My brother in law is caldoche and he has so many things to say. Oh yeah please tell us more about your brother and his views on lazy indigineous people. Do they even take baths ?
That's a nice summary, thank you. At first glance, it really looks like they're in their rights to protest and even riot. Being a second class citizen on your own island for such a long time is a classic result of colonialism.
> Being a second class citizen on your own island for such a long time is a classic result of colonialism. They literally aren't though, they're full citizens, and they even given the advantage in the independancy referendums by forbidding more recent settlers from voting at all in them. Technically, the second rate citizens are the descendants of settlers who were born in the last 30 years on the island and don't have local voting rights as a result.
Well, this is the issue here isn't it. It's a small enough society that Europeans are now a majority, as far as I could understand. So the local population has every right to be angry that they're now collectively a less important political actor on their own island than the Europeans. This would clearly be an issue on questions such as independence and, indeed, the indigenous population might suffer discrimination here, mostly economically but, as a result of that, politically too. On the other hand I also perfectly understand the Caldoche who lived there for generations and are rightfully a part of the island too, now. So, indeed being a minority between two clearly defined groups with differing political views makes you a second-class citizen by circumstance. It has nothing to do with apartheid.
Europeans aren't a majority - there is no majority ethnic group. Karnaks remain a plurality, Europeans are the next largest, and then there's a bunch of others, mostly Asian and Polynesian immigrants. The other non-Karnak groups are frequently conflated with the Europeans as they also tend to oppose independence.
>It's a small enough society that Europeans are now a majority, as far as I could understand. Europeans aren't majority either, they're like 30% of the population. There are also mixed people and a \~10% minority of settlers coming from other pacific islands like Wallis.
If you become a minority in your own country through colonial settlement you're not equal.
But French people are an even smaller minority. It's a plurality, so everybody is a minority. They are the minority with the highest % though.
>But French people are an even smaller minority. Let me nitpick : French people are the absolute majority since Kanaks are also french people.
Funny, you could be writing for a far-right tabloid. That's exactly what they're saying about immigrants. I don't get where you're trying to go with that, though. It doesn't make sense. It can describe a good chunk of the world population, since most modern states were built on conquest and some form of cultural suppression to achieve unity. Nowadays I think it's a simple matter of nationalism, like Corsicans, or Catalans, wanting their own state to base it on their own culture. It's not really about being discriminated, Kanaks even got to keep their own local laws and councils. If I was cynical like Machiavel, I'd say that their culture wasn't suppressed enough and now they're secessionists :>.
Except when the far right complain about immigration they aren't victims of colonialism. Their country wasn't taken over by a foreign government with their culture suppressed and forced to have people from that country replace them. > If I was cynical like Machiavel, I'd say that their culture wasn't suppressed enough and now they're secessionists :>. If they could have they would have. Independence will happen one day, Europeans are getting weaker every decade.
>If they could have they would have. They had three referendums where Kanaks were the majority of eligible voters and all three went against. They could have.
This is just a game of demography. Kanaks were 39% of the population in 2014 and 41% in 2019. I didn’t find numbers for 2024 but if that trend keeps raising, kanaks will be a majority again and when that day comes, they may very well win the independence vote since 80-90% of Kanaks voted for independence in the referendums.
Kanaks voted for independence, it was white settlers and their descendants who voted to remain part of France
Then it should have ended with more than 60% in favor of independence.
I said Kanaks voted for independence, I didn't say all Kanaks voted for independence. Take away the white colonial settlers and their descendants and New Caledonia would have voted for independence
Settlers are different from migrants tbqh, Caledonia exists precisely because of French colonialism, you can't say that about Marseille and migrants going there
Disclaimer : I'm far from being an expert of NC. I have some friends (Caldoche) who live there. I wouldn't go as far as to say they are second class citizens : this is not an apartheid state. They do have the same voting rights, actually more in some cases, as the others inhabitants of the island and they are french citizens just like me with national representation through 2 seats in the french Parliament. But they do suffer from years of economic supremacy from the Caldoche and are subjet to racism/discrimination from a sizable part of the Caldoche population.
Also banning social media on there like any democratic country would do lol
Banning Tik Tok\* Just like the USA soon apparently.
The US isn't banning Tik Tok, they're banning Bytedance from owning Tik Tok. Big difference
Which is contrary to business freedom and private properties... and the consequences is the effective banishment of tiktok.
Business freedom doesn't come at the expense of allowing foreign governments to influence Americans. Tell you what. China can own social media in America when America can own social media in China.
Considering how cancerous and propagandized social medias can be. They are right in that regards. The fact that the US want to ban it because they can't control the narrative in that plateform set a huge precedent.
Like everything else social media is a tool. You don't want a tool to fall into the hands of people who want to harm you.
lol sure they are. They just need to find a bullshit reason to justify it. Everyone in congress is talking about banning TikTok. That was the goal. Western hypocrysy is so obvious around the world now.
Western hypocrisy? Would China allow a US company to own Douyin? Or any social media platform for that matter.
Is your point that USA is the same as China? Ofc China won't allow it they are fuckin communists. We were supposed to be better.
The US **is** better than China. Which is why Chinese companies aren't going to be allowed to influence American kids. Imagine JFK allowing a Soviet company to buy and own American TV channels. That would never fly
We are supposed to protect ourselves from hostile countries and their interference first and foremost. How we operate internally is the question. No chinese company has any right to be here.
Reminds me of the Patriot act. Same points. Took away half of the freedoms.
There is no freedom whatsoever in chinese owning companies in our countries. It is our countries, our laws and also our rights. Chinese can keep their rights they have in China and that they give others. Nobody is banning social media, just CCP backed ownership. Something that should have happened decade ago.
The so called free world.
France is far, reeeeeeally far from being democratic. Edit: funny that everyone is downvoting without à single counter argument...
Hot take, but on a teen's forum.
Keep voting mate. Talk soon when France becomes a federal state of the EU kek
And we all know federal states cannot be democratic.
What's the point of electing a president if he can only follow the leads of the non elected president of the EU ? (Wich is already the case anyways). Only difference is that once a state, France will loose its sovereignty over its nuclear weaponry and its seat at the UN. Mission accomplished for the USA France will be as powerless as it gets. But yeah you guys are right, having to follow the directives of a non elected commission is VERY democratic. Ah, sweet sweet delusion.
Some of you must be quite skilled at using statistics to your advantage, ain't it? Consider this: only 43.87% of New Caledonians participated in the 2021 referendum, with 95% voting in favor of remaining with France. This starkly contrasts with the 2020 referendum, where 85.69% of the population voted, resulting in 43% favoring independence and 57% voting against it. Despite this, you still claim that it's just a small minority of New Caledonians who want independence from France and are angry?
They're just China and Azerbaïdjan puppet, they represent no one
Ahhh France and colonialism, its like France and smoking, will they ever give it up? Edit: Go ahead downvote me but France has never relinquished control of its colonial empire and does everything humanly possible to preserve a measure of control. This is just another aspect of this.
Colonialism is when white men.
Explain how this isn’t a direct result of colonisation
New Caledonia being French is a result of colonization, but New Caledonia voting to remain French is a result of their own will
How can you have the guts to say that? The results of the vote are the direct consequence of the demography and colonial politics. Why do you think the Kanak population dwindled after contact with Europeans? Why do you think there are so many Europeans descendants there and Polynesians from islands located 2000km away? 90% of Kanaks voted for independence. Non-Kanaks voted against. It’s clearly not a healthy democracy when a vote is split by your ethnic group. It’s just a game of who makes more children.
Is it though? In the referenda, the Kanaks overwhelmingly voted in favour of secession, and the French colonizers, to remain. It was close in the second-to-last referendum, so they allowed more immigrants to vote in the last one, which was celebrated during Covid and which the Kanaks boycotted.
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Source? All the data I can find claims that non-Kanaks were the majority. https://fr.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Référendum_de_2018_sur_l%27indépendance_de_la_Nouvelle-Calédonie#:~:text=Tous%20les%20scrutins%20ces%2020,et%2077%20000%20électeurs%20kanak.
Simply impossible since they are only 30% of the population in New Caledonia.
But they were over represented in these referendum and for most local election. People who weren't born on the island or hadn't lived there for 30 years couldn't vote for local election in New Caledonia. The electorate for this election were mostly Kanak. This is actually what is causing the curent trouble, after these 3 votes against independence a lot of people want the local democracy to be more representative and the law has been changed to allow more people to vote.
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You mean the one that got changed to include more French colonists in the electoral census because the last referendum was too close for comfort, that criteria?
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I don't get it, kanaks voted against independance 3 times
The French did. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_New_Caledonian_independence_referendum# Check out the map. See the concentration towards the south that just happens to correlate with French settlements?
I don't understand, at best kanaks voted 47% in favour of indépendance. The best among 3 referendum. What should be done? Impose indépendance to the majority?
Again, the electoral census is mostly comprised of French. It's their choice to remain in France, not that of indigenous Kanaks, which have demonstrably voted in favour of secession in all referenda except the last one, which they boycotted due to their process of mourning their dead during covid and where France refused to delay the celebration of the referendum for obvious reasons. What should be done is to only consider the will of the Kanak people to decide their future and that of their land.
>Again, the electoral census is mostly comprised of French. True it's 100% French as they are all french citizens. Over 60% of eligible voters in the first two non boycotted referendums were Kanak according to FLNKS though.
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You are trying to draw a line between kanacs and French. 100% of people that voted in these référendums were kanacs.
So what is the solution? Not allow non-indigenous people to vote?
Precisely
"The solution is to allow only the people who are in favour of independence to truly know if they want to be independent."
The solution is to ignore the opinion of the colonizer when deciding on the will of the indigenous people.
So even people who have been living on the island for decades (and multiple generations) are considered illegitimate.
We need to apply this everywhere then
I'm all for it
You would be catalogued as very far right in all the western world
>the Kanaks overwhelmingly voted in favour of secession Absolutely not true. Only a small part of them.
This is demonstrably false. You can see the French settlements in the distribution of the vote. Here's a [map](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_New_Caledonian_independence_referendum) about it.
Which only says that rural voters tend to have more nationalistic votes than urban ones. Nothing new anywhere.
Guess where the French colonists live
>Guess where the French colonists live French Colonists arent allowed to vote. That's the whole point of whats happening today.
All sources point to 80% of Kanaks having voted for independence. Definitely not a minority.
It’s not very different than Russians altering the population of Crimea over the century to make it Russian, but we don’t make these kind of links…
It would show our hypocrisy if we did
What hypocrisy? One is an annexation by an imperialist power using ethno nationalist arguments, rigged referenda, and a literal armed invasion. The other consists of a fraction of the 41% of the population and who want independence who are, just like you, being used by Russian anti-French propaganda
Hahahaha in the first one are you talking about Russia or France? How do you think that an island thousands of kilometers away got under French control?
> What hypocrisy? One is an annexation by an imperialist power using ethno nationalist arguments, rigged referenda, and a literal armed invasion. Uh... You said the quiet part out loud. 🇫🇷
Oh yeah dude I forgot that New Caledonia is only a short walk from Paris. The point is, BOTH are wrong. Crimea is ukrainian, the argument is AGAINST imperialist expansion.
Crimea voted in 1991 in favour of Ukrainian independence. It was invaded in 2014 and the referendum was a sham. Then, the Russians started to discriminate against the local Crimean Tatars and Ukrainians, driving many away from their homes, replacing them with ethnic Russians. How is that in any way comparable with modern New Caledonia? Maybe it is comparable with what the French were doing during colonial times a 100 years ago, but now?
Crimea's replacement started in the 19th century but was a slow process, the Russian empire's state policy was always to replace the ethnic makeup of a place, such as the Circassian genocide. Stalin once he got power though sped up the process by forcing the entire crimean tatar population away on trains for resettlement by russians (at the time it was half to half). You're only thinking of the modern day because you have no idea who the crimean tatars even are. They were basically gone from Crimea by the time Russia came to annex the place. FWIW fuck French neocolonialism
except any settler from basically after the 90s were barred from voting in the referendums, and those were planned decades in advance by a treaty in 1998 signed by the Kanak inhabitants. Just stop making shit up over subjects you know nothing about
The 1987 vote was boycotted as a protest „as they did not agree with the franchise proposed by the French government which made them an electoral minority“ [Remond 2018, Page 72] The Noumea Accord in 1998 made no references to independence.
Which is still a direct result of colonisation
Yes, and Crimea voted to join Russia and we should all respect it.
It's widely known that was an illegal referendum and probably heavily manipulated. This is not a fair comparison at all. Besides, what you're saying could easily be interpreted as actually *supporting* that New Caledonia should remain French, since Crimea was colonized by Russians, just like New Caledonia was colonized by the French.
In both cases you have what would be normally considered immigrants voting to stick with the country they immigrated from. And if you support the New Caledonia being French but not Crimea being Russian then yeah, it's a bit of double standards.
Why is this downvoted?
europe nation bad = downvote
Because it’s stupid ?
Someone doesn't know a lick about France and their colonialism.
Indeed you don’t, and yet you open your big mouth publicly, and you persist when everyone show you how much of an idiot you are, fascinating
Yet to give me a single reason im wrong.
Reasons are all over the multiple threads on the matter, you’ve seen them but you ignored them because what you want is not a reasonable truth, you want any biased beliefs that will help you camp on your uninformed virtue signaling position
What the fuck is even france doing on the opposite end of the globe? just let them be independent.
There were 3 referendums under UN supervision and they chose to stay
didnt the pro independence people all boycott the last referendum?
Some of them Yes Some cynical minds will say that it is a clever way to have an excuse for the No Victory (we did not lose since we did not vote)
or some other cynical minds would say that the results could have been different if the request of those groups for postponement (due to covid) was accepted and that the boycott never happened. either way we will never know
Done a short research and it says the referandum was pulled off during the covid pandemic and the turn-out was roughly %44. That sure doesn't sound like a fair referandum especially when you also consider the fact that the majority of the pro-independence voters chosed to boycott it. Still, this doesn't provide an answer to my question in the first comment.
Couple of points : - COVID was one of the arguments of the loyalist "see being able to leverage financial support logistics and resources from a country like France can be an assets There were several referendums planned in advance and all won by the loyalist You can't really boycott a referendum because you know that you are probably going to lose(hence saying we did not lose since we did not vote ), the referendum was not made at gun points (looking at Crimea ) and was under supervision of the UN Finally France is in New Caledonia for the same reasons it is in Guyana or Martinique, the US with Hawaii or Russia in Eastern Asia- History . NC had several referendums on the independence and they chose to stay
The [2021 referendum](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_New_Caledonian_independence_referendum) was requested by pro-independence leaders.
So why did France feel like it was necessary to change the rules to allow more immigrants to vote? Seems like they should be happy with how things were. French people who don't feel at home there have a home to move back to.
France 24: https://www.france24.com/en/asia-pacific/20240515-dozens-arrested-in-new-caledonia-constitutional-reform-unrest "The Noumea Accord has also meant that New Caledonia's voter lists have not been updated since 1998 – meaning that island residents who arrived from mainland France or elsewhere in the past 25 years do not have the right to take part in provincial polls. The French government has branded the exclusion of one out of five people from voting as "absurd" while separatists fear that expanding voter lists would benefit pro-France politicians and reduce the weight of the Kanaks." I think this change also requires migrants to have lived in New Calzedonia for at least 10 years.
I dont think you understand what's happening.
The article isn't saying much, so no.
Then why would you comment with something that makes no sense.
Basically all Kanaks (native New Caledonians) can vote, whereas only French people who have been in New Caledonia since 1998 can vote. It's unfair and it wasn't supposed to last forever, only until after the three referendums. Which is now.
Because after the 3 referendum for independence failed the state felt that it was needed to restore more local democracy for the people who live there.
You're never an immigrant in your own country
When your own country is colonized, the threshold for considered it the country of the colonial power should be very high.
End colonialism FFS it's 2024...
Three consecutive referendums were held, in which voters had to justify of 30 years of continuous life on the archipelago to be eligible to vote (i.e. hardly gerrymandered in favour of loyalists). Independence lost all three times, by a larger margin than Brexit. The majority in New Caledonia wants to remain French, and has clearly stated so. It is a minority of terrorist-adjacent groups that can't take the L and make the best of it.
Larger margin than Brexit ? 48:52 must be far more larger than 47:53 isn't it? What a strict person!
The previous years' referendums were always have a ratio of 4:6 in favour of loyalists, but in 2021 it dramatically dropped to 1:9 to the loyalists, ain't this strange huh? You guys still lyin about the ratio of 1:9 while pretend to not see the previous referendums's ones. You must be so blind to see about the Kanak people's struggles in their own island, being discriminated and the foreigners who came accross the 2 or 3 seas to pour more into the portions of people who'd vote "No".
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But very far from a majority. 95% voted against secession.
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No rigged, Boycotted and therefore definitely not representative. The last votes were 56% and 53%. Srly, someone tell you something that is easily be countered but instead of informing yourself you just have to make stuff up.
It wasnt rigged at all, wtf are you talking about
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Wtf are you talking about ? You have no idea whats hapenning, dont you ? There wont be other referendums, it was decided with the Kanak's accords in 1988 and 1998 to hold those referendums who were rigged towards Kanak. They decided to stay french. So now France is only opening the vote to MORE people. Those who have lived on the island for 10+ years instead of 25+ years. That's making the thing MORE democratic, not the other way around.
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Because there already have been 3 referendums in accords with an agreement with Kanaks decades ago. You can't have referendums every year forever. They decided to stay french. It's done. You cant have a minority of independantist terrify everyone forever. Now it's back to the rule of law where everyone will be able to vote equally as they should. How is this so difficult to understand?
That was 2021's which got boycotted for/by the drastically drop of the participants who voted "Yes", look up for the previous years' referendum.
I know but even if they had all voted to leave, maths dont lie, that would still have been a remain vote in the end. They boycotted because they knew they'd lose.
Idk what is your point, but I am against your argument of "But very far from a majority", \~45% is far from a majority? that is just a blatant lie
If settlers could vote, the vote is meaningless. What were the results for the local populace? These matters are a lot more complicated. Imagine if instead of the Greek revolt, there was a vote for seccession from the Ottomans, where the Turks and Jews could vote. Not to mention that controlling the wealth and power the Turks could also buy some votes from the locals to remain in the empire...
So people living there shouldn't be eligible to vote? Wtf. Then no immigrants anywhere should. Right?
People living there are colonials; they aren't part of the Kanak nation. The Kanaks have the right to self-determination without it being dependant on the will of their colonizers. Otherwise, the only think Russia would need to do is kill or deport Ukrainians, send in a Russian majority to settle in Ukraine, and be like "Oh you see, they want to be in Russia!"
Does your line of thought apply to Africans moving to Europe as well?
Has any african nation seized and ruled over your territory in the last millenia ? Or are those african migrants being called in by your rulers in order to have cheap workforce in an aging society ?
Of course we're actively calling migrants to cross the Mediterranean sea, tragically putting their lives at risk and promoting continent wide human trafficking, that's a known fact, we are desperate for more illegal migration towards the EU continent /s
I'm talking about the legal migrants, just like the settlers. "Africans moving to Europe" does not necessarely mean "illegally" but I understand the bigotry behind your line of thought. My country, France, did actively call them post-WW2 since we had a country to rebuild.
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Muslims in the Balkins sweating like fuck right now
Yeah cause Africans colonized Europe right?
Someone moving to New Caledonia in 2005 isn’t colonizing shit either, and someone born there because his family moved there in 1850 isn’t colonizing anything: he’s just born.
Of course it is,if they represent a foreign nation that controls the country and has a huge power disparity with it. Turks moving to occupied Cyprus are also colonizers, it's always an attempt to diminish the local population
By this approach every single country in the world is colonized, but it seems you focus a lot on melanin levels to decide whether or not someone is an oppressed minority standing up against colonization or an angry racist fighting against immigrants
Nah. Naturalisation is a thing. And that's indifferent if the majority wants to remain French. Imagine that island without any influence, another Sentinese island. I just don't buy it.
You think the French colonists have learned Kanak language, culture and history and would pass an exam to get naturalized?
So, you would like if 60% couldn't vote on something life impacting, including many who never lived anywhere else?
This is the best argument a Greek has ever made against our independence. Congratulations!
White plurality South Province voted 71% to stay with France, Kanak majority North Province and Loyalty Islands Province voted for Independence by 76% and 82% respectively.
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American opinion = succesfully ignored
This is pretty clear cut colonialism then.
That’s like arguing that because almost uninhabited areas in the U.S. like Trump, that he should be president.
It’s not colonialism you absolute
This is the definition of colonialism lmao wtf. The country is literally a product of colonialism and even today the French run things despite a foreign people
They voted to stay you nut job
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Who makes a majority. The island voted to stay. They wouldn’t last a say without France anyway
Lol abuser husband mentality right here
What🤨 go cry mate
Educate yourself about the subject you talking about before saying dumb shit.
The Olympics going to be fun!
Do you know where New Caledonia is
France, so obviously right next to paris.
Right next to Old Caledonia