The Accord on New Caledonia was signed at Nouméa on 5 May 1998 by Prime Minister Lionel Jospin and the secretary of state for overseas affairs Jean-Jack Queyranne, for the French Republic, by Roch Wamytan, Paul Néaoutyine, Charles Pidjot and Victor Tutugoro for the FLNKS, and by Jacques Lafleur, Pierre Frogier, Simon Loueckhote, Harold Martin, Jean Lèques and Bernard Deladrière for the RPCR. The negotiation took place in the presence of High Commissioner Dominique Bur. It was published in the Official Journal of the French Republic No. 121 of 27 May 1998, NOR PRMX9801273X. The place formula is not transcribed. It is not the Matignon Accords of June 1988, which it continues.

The preamble records that, when France took possession of Grande Terre, the territory was not empty: the Kanak people had a civilisation, languages, custom and a particular bond with the land. Colonisation, part of a wider European movement, also brought new populations, but meant land dispossession, displacement, and the denial of identity and public liberties. The signatories state that decolonisation is the way to rebuild a lasting social bond, with recognition of Kanak identity as the precondition of a shared sovereignty in a common destiny. A colonial handbook is not transcribed.

The orientation document defines, for twenty years, the political organisation of New Caledonia and the terms of its emancipation, to be followed by a constitutional statute. Recognition of Kanak identity proceeds, as a principle, through customary status, a Customary Senate, cultural heritage, mechanisms relating to land, and identity symbols. Some deliberations of the Territory’s Congress acquire legislative force; the Executive is elected. The bases of a New Caledonian citizenship are laid, which may later become a nationality, if so decided.

The sharing of powers between the State and New Caledonia is a shared sovereignty, gradual: some competences are transferred from the outset, others on a timetable that the Congress may modulate, under the principle of self-organisation. Transferred competences cannot revert to the State — irreversibility. The State remains, at the initial stage, holder of the sovereign powers (defence, public order, justice, currency, external relations), point 5 opening consultation on their transfer. An operational referendum calendar is not transcribed.

The electoral body for the local assemblies and for the consultations at the end of the period is restricted, tied to the referendum law of 9 November 1988 and to a period of domicile; the enrolment criteria are not transcribed. Measures to protect local employment, given the narrow labour market. The State remains with technical assistance, training and multi-year financing. New Caledonia is to gain sufficient control of development tools (posts, energy, rural development, the Agency for the development of Kanak culture), without a privatisation catalogue.

Point 5: during the fourth five-year term of Congress, a consultation on the transfer of sovereign powers, access to an internationally responsible status and the organisation of citizenship into nationality. If the answer is negative, one third of Congress may provoke a second, then a third; if all are negative, the partners meet. The 1998 organisation remains, at its last stage of evolution, with no going back, constitutionally guaranteed. The result applies to the whole of New Caledonia. Point 6: a poll on the Accord before the end of 1998; a committee of the signatories to follow implementation. The consultation of the populations was held on 8 November 1998.

Cover: Place des Cocotiers in Nouméa, the capital of the place of signature; no claim is made to the hall. Wikimedia Commons, free licence.

Sources consulted: Nouméa Accord; Accord sur la Nouvelle-Calédonie signé à Nouméa le 5 mai 1998.