Transcript
WALTER ZWEIFEL: What appeared to be an innocuous announcement about a so-called information mission to New Caledonia has turned into a bitter dispute. When it was announced that it would be led by a former prime minister Manuel Valls, one prominent left-wing member Jean-Luc Melenchon resigned from the mission in protest, saying Mr Valls was a most inappropriate choice, and accused him of harbouring ethnicist views found of the extreme right.
DON WISEMAN: But Mr Valls had been a Socialist prime minister under Francois Hollande?
WZ: That's true but the party fared dismally in the lead-up to the presidential election this year. Emmanuel Macron had left the Valls government last year to prepare to run for the presidency and when Mr Valls failed to get the nomination for the Socialists, he quit the party and joined Mr Macron's new movement for which he has secured a seat in the National Assembly. One of the key candidates on the far left was Mr Melenchon who is pushing hard against the En Marche government.
DW: Why was Mr Valls chosen to lead the delegation?
WZ: Mr Valls is familiar with the New Caledonia question. For two consecutive years he chaired the annual meeting of the signatories to the Noumea Accord in Paris. Mr Valls has also been professing to act in the vein of Michel Rocard and Lionel Jospin who were the prime ministers when the key accords on New Caledonia, in 1988 and 1998 respectively, were agreed. Mr Valls reacted to Mr Melenchon's resignation and comment, saying the response was outrageous.
DW: What has the reaction been in New Caledonia?
WZ: There has been a range of responses but nobody considers this flare-up in any way helpful. The pro-independence Labour Party leader Louis Kotra-Uregei said the French mission was phoney anyway and Mr Valls wasn't impartial. An anti-independence politician Sonia Backes has called for end to the settling of scores on the back of New Caledonians. Philippe Gomes, who is a local anti-independence politician and a vice-president of the mission, said the New Caledonia issue needs to be handled with discernment and wisdom, leaving no room for that kind of political bickering. The National Front in Noumea says given Marine Le Pen's score in the election, the party's Louis Aliot should be included in the mission.
DW: Amid this dispute, crucial questions about next year's referendum remain. How are things progressing?
WZ: In three weeks, the Noumea Accord signatories are due to meet in Paris for their last annual meeting which will be chaired by the new prime minister Edouard Philippe. Although the Noumea Accord has been around since 1998, there is still no final agreement on who will be allowed to vote. This is a highly controversial issue which years of discussions have failed to clear up. The Kanak side insists on an automatic enrollment of the indigenous people on the general roll and the referendum roll. This would require a constitutional change. Kanaks plan another mass rally next week to mark this point. The clock of course is ticking and there is growing unease that too much is still uncertain of how this referendum process will continue to play out.
