New Caledonia stands at a precipice. Political representatives from this French Territory are meeting in Paris to try to eke out an agreement over its political future in the dark shadow of the violence of 2024 that saw New Caledonia burn and 14 people — 12 Kanaks and two French military — killed.

The violence that lasted six months left the Territory’s economy in tatters and its inhabitants shell-shocked. The scars from these events have hardened the resolve of some who oppose independence and muted the resolve of others who now countenance some concessions, if only to avoid further violence. Pro-independence parties, for their part, have also borne the brunt of internal contestation as a result of the violence, with defections from the pro-independence umbrella alliance, the FLNKS, and differing positions over the form that independence could take. In this charged and changing political landscape, the main interlocutors must attempt to reach an agreement that is acceptable to all factions. The risk is that any compromise will ignite the passions that animate sections within both political orientations, particularly those of the young Kanaks who brought the territory to its knees in 2024 and whose hostility towards France has only amplified as a result of France’s overwhelming military response. For these young militants, will any form of independence be enough?

The meeting in France, initiated by President Macron and presided over by a suite of French political dignitaries, comes on the heels of failed attempts to broker a deal over independence in response to the violence. Macron’s lightning visit in May 2024 was poorly received by most political actors who considered his presence both a provocation and an insult to the rooted and intractable complexities that have defined New Caledonia’s social and political tensions. The idea that his mere presence could swing a mediated settlement in a few days, was seen by pro-independence activists as yet another expression of colonial arrogance. The subsequent attempt by Overseas Minister Emmanuel Valls in May 2025 faced similar hostility, this time from pro-France “loyalist” politicians who expressed outrage at being ambushed by his proposal for a form of independence-in-association, similar to arrangements between the US and some of its former Pacific colonies. This seeming betrayal reinforced their animosity to negotiations that ceded any ground to any form of independence. As the loyalist French Deputy to the French Assembly National Nicolas Metzdorf asserted, “ We will never accept independence, independence in association, or a trajectory towards independence.”

The proposal for a form of independence-in-association was met with a muted response from the leading pro-independence participant, Emmanuel Tjibaou, son of the revered politician Jean-Marie Tjibaou, a signatory to the Matignon Accords that brought calm after a previous period of violence in pursuit of independence in the late 1980s. There was no need to respond publicly in the face of its outright rejection by the loyalists, but Tjibaou has repeated that the political discussions in France must start with this proposition as a “ minimum” for any further negotiations.

The signs are not good. In his opening address, President Macron mapped out parameters that augured badly for an outcome that goes beyond independence-in-association. According to Metzdorf, the president “specified that New Caledonia will remain French” because Caledonians had voted to remain with France in three referendums (the last was boycotted by pro-independence supporters). Macron’s comments were, he said, “ a good point for us”. They are, however, a far cry from the foundational position of the independence movement – the demand of the indigenous Kanak people to the right to self-determination and full independence.

Current FLNKS leader Christian Tein, recently released from a year in a French prison for allegedly masterminding the violence of 2024 — charges that have been largely dropped — commented in his first press conference that he is “ terribly sad for his country” but reaffirmed that New Caledonia must acquire full independence before it engages in discussions about its ongoing relationship with France. On Wednesday, he presented at the door of the French Parliament to gain entry to the negotiations but was turned away. They told him his name was not on the invitation list.

On the list is a phalanx of local political and economic actors, the overwhelming majority of whom either oppose independence outright or have come to a position of compromise, such as represented by an independence-in-association outcome. It is hard to see how the conviction of Tein and many others in the independence movement for complete sovereignty can prevail in the meeting in France. Tein and other political militants caught up in the arrests and imprisoned in France have spoken of their brutal and inhumane treatment during their 30-hour transportation to France, handcuffed and treated poorly. If they ever needed one, this must have been a cruel reminder of the brutality that has underscored French colonialism in New Caledonia since the beginning – a reminder that France, for all its grand themes of equality and justice, remains the colonial master and as such, cannot be trusted. Tein was polite when he said that such treatment should not be afforded anyone by an “ enlightened country such as France”. You can just imagine the substrate to this observation that went unsaid. A colonial power can espouse one thing and do another, but Tein and other colonised people already know this.

Tjibaou, for his part, has been at pains to remind France and the people of New Caledonia that the previous agreements enacted out of the devastating struggles for independence in the 1980s were, themselves, decolonisation agreements that set New Caledonia on a trajectory to independence that cannot be disavowed. This understanding of history has been refuted by loyalist politicians who now suggest that their representatives of the time were manipulated by French negotiators into signing. They argue anyway that any putative understanding has been superseded by the outcome of the referendums. It is time, they say, for a fresh start.

In New Caledonia, advocacy for a middle way is popping up in surprising places. The pro-loyalist publication, The Noumea Dispatch, recently published the results of a poll it commissioned that showed “47% of pro-independence supporters are opposed to an immediate independence”. The story is not so much remarkable for its content as for its appearance in a publication disinclined to acknowledge any legitimate support for independence. What was previously taboo now appears to be acceptable in the current climate of revisionism.

They can compromise all they like in France, but the reality is that New Caledonia is the birthright of those young Kanaks who blocked the roads, looted shops, burnt down businesses and threw rocks and worse at the French military during the 2024 insurrection. The conviction of these young Caledonians, that France is their enemy, has only been exacerbated by the overwhelming French military response to the insurrection. In the tribe of St Louis, 25 km south of Noumea, three young Kanaks were shot dead by French military, with the wounds running deep in the community. As a relative of one of the dead said, “these young are willing to die for Kanaky”. The question is: Will their lives be saved by independence-in-association?

The views expressed in this article may or may not reflect those of Pearls and Irritations.