(Nouméa) At the origin of the riots in New Caledonia, the constitutional bill modifying the electoral body of the French archipelago in the South Pacific was “suspended” by President Emmanuel Macron on Wednesday following the dissolution of the ‘National Assembly.
“The constitutional bill […] I decided to suspend it because we cannot leave ambiguity in the period,” announced the head of state during a press conference in Paris. He specified that he wanted to “give all its strength to dialogue on site and the return to order”.
The reform project, which sparked unprecedented violence since the 1980s on May 13, aims to expand the electorate – frozen since 2007 – in provincial elections, which are crucial in the region.
These riots left nine dead, hundreds injured and significant damage, according to the latest official report.
Under the terms of the reform project, around 25,000 voters, natives or residents for 10 years, could join the electoral list, at the risk of marginalizing the indigenous Kanak people, accuse the separatists.
After the votes of the Senate on April 2 and the Assembly on May 14, the project still had to be adopted by the Parliament meeting in Congress at Versailles.
But on Sunday, Mr. Macron responded to the historic victory of the far right in the European elections by announcing a surprise dissolution of the National Assembly, and the calling of legislative elections to take place on June 30 and July 7.
Outgoing Macronist MP Philippe Dunoyer welcomed Mr. Macron’s “good decision” to AFP.
“It is very, very urgent […] to find a climate of appeasement, for the roadblocks to be lifted, for the threads of dialogue to be found,” added the elected official, candidate for re-election. “The absolute priority is not to campaign […], it is to restore peace. »
Conversely, the rapporteur of the bill to the Assembly, the Macronist deputy Nicolas Metzdorf (2nd constituency) makes “a severe observation” of the announcement of the suspension, which he described as “useless on the part of the President of the Republic to the extent that with the dissolution of the National Assembly the text was de facto suspended, which does not mean withdrawn”.
“It doesn’t please anyone since the separatists are demanding withdrawal […]. I find that this is not paying tribute to the Caledonians who are mobilized for the thaw, for democracy, to protect their neighborhoods, where they want to live in peace,” lamented Mr. Metzdorf on Thursday during a press conference where he announced that he was a candidate for the legislative elections, but this time in the 1st district, facing Philippe Dunoyer.
The independence camp did not react immediately. But, in recent days, he had already drawn a line under the reform.
“The president has lost his hand, it is we who have it now and we say that we must go towards provincial elections with a frozen body,” judged Daniel Goa, president of the main independence party, the Caledonian Union (UC).
“We can agree that the European elections will have defeated constitutional law,” the Kanak Liberation Party (Palika) wrote earlier on Wednesday. This moderate independence movement also called for “lifting roadblocks and blockades.”
The scenario of a return of the text to parliamentarians after the legislative elections of June 30 and July 7 seems very improbable.
“In theory, it would be entirely possible to be able to continue the constitutional revision process later, once the National Assembly is again constituted,” noted Léa Havard, lecturer in public law at the University of New -Caledonia.
“We could imagine adopting this constitutional revision at the end of July or in August, even if it mentions an entry into force at the beginning of July,” she continues. “From a strictly legal point of view, it’s not impossible. But from a political point of view, it doesn’t really make sense. »
In any case, the separatist Daniel Goa does not seem disturbed by the possibility that his next interlocutor will be the National Rally (RN), in the event of this formation’s victory in the next legislative elections, or even in the presidential election.
“Whether it’s Macron or Le Pen, it won’t change much […] Le Pen doesn’t scare us, they’re nationalists. We are also nationalists, but in our country. This is not the case with Macron,” he says.
The RN recently reviewed its entire Caledonian doctrine: while its figurehead, Marine Le Pen, considered “definitive” the result of the third referendum on independence in 2021 –– boycotted by the separatists, who do not recognize the victory of the “no” -, in May she suggested a new consultation within “forty years”.