The polling stations in New Caledonia, a strategic archipelago of 270,000 inhabitants in the South Pacific, opened Sunday, October 4 for a second referendum intended to choose between France and independence.
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Nearly 180,598 voters from this French archipelago, colonized in 1853 and having significant nickel reserves, have until 6 p.m. (9 a.m. in Paris) to go to one of the 294 polling stations and say whether they want "
New Caledonia to gain full sovereignty and become independent
".
In this territory 18,000 km from Paris, which represents one of the last bastions of European sovereignty in the area after Brexit, a first ballot on November 4, 2018 saw the pro-French win by 56.7% of the vote .
Even before the opening of the offices, several dozen voters were already lining up, despite the rain, in front of the polling stations installed in the Candide Koch school, in the Vallée des Colons in Nouméa.
Not all the inhabitants of Caillou can speak: the electorate of this sensitive ballot is conditioned on several criteria, such as justifying a continuous residence in New Caledonia since at least December 31, 1994, being a native of the archipelago or fall under the customary Kanak civil status.
The consultation, the result of which will be known on Sunday evening (Sunday morning in metropolitan France), takes place without barrier or mask measures, since the archipelago is free from Covid-19, thanks to a drastic reduction in international flights and a mandatory quarantine for everything. arriving.
This referendum, like the first, is part of a process of decolonization started in 1988 by the Matignon accords, signed by the Kanak independentist Jean-Marie Tjibaou and the loyalist Jacques Lafleur, after several years of virtual civil war between Kanaks, first people, and Caldoches, of European origin.