Sonia Backès is president of the Southern Province of New Caledonia.
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Could we imagine accepting, in France, that citizens are deprived of civil rights because of their ethnic origin?
Because the idea of institutionalized racism is abject, obviously not.
Could we imagine accepting, in France, that elections which decide the future of the country are held by excluding 20% of the population, corresponding to the population of Île-de-France?
Because the French are equal in law, obviously not.
Could we imagine accepting, in France, that the representativeness of a political assembly is rigged to favor a political party?
Because political pluralism is respected, obviously not.
In France, such democratic renunciations would be unacceptable.
However, this is what Caledonians have been subjected to for 25 years.
In New Caledonia, the State has put in place provisions that are particularly derogatory from democratic principles, even though they are supposed to be protected by the Constitution.
This is how, locally, two categories of citizens coexist.
On the one hand, normal citizens.
On the other, sub-citizens living in a regime of civic exception where access to certain jobs is prohibited to them and where, above all, the right to vote in local elections is refused to them.
These sub-citizens are indeed French in France, in full possession of their civil rights, but their crime is to have arrived in New Caledonia after 1998. They are today forced into political silence in perpetuity even though some are established in the territory, with wife and children, for more than 25 years.
The State has also accepted political realities that are completely contrary to the democratic principles that it enshrines everywhere else.
At the New Caledonia Congress, the deliberative assembly of the territory, the Northern Province and the Islands Province - overwhelmingly pro-independence - are over-represented.
While they do not even accommodate 25% of the population, they occupy more than 40% of the seats.
It is because of this institutionalized political imbalance that the separatists today lead the congress and the government of New Caledonia.
Although having gathered 18,000 more votes in the last local elections, that is to say more than 16% of the vote, the non-independence people who largely won the elections are today a minority in the political institutions of a territory which voted to place them in charge.
The Caledonians have chosen to remain French.
In a period when signs of affection for our beautiful country are lacking, this act of the heart deserves to be honored.
Sonia Backès
The inhabitants of the Southern province, largely non-independence, who represent three-quarters of the population and create more than 90% of the territory's wealth, are under-represented.
Their voice, neglected, weighs 2.5 times less than that of an island inhabitant!
A reality however contrary to the jurisprudence of the Constitutional Council.
But, as is often the case in New Caledonia, depending on whether you are an independentist or a loyalist, the court judgments will make you white or black.
This iniquitous system of variable geometry democracy has reached the end of its justifications.
The existence and maintenance of these exceptionally derogatory provisions from the most fundamental democratic principles were justified solely by their transitional nature.
In other words, they were acceptable while the Caledonians decided on their desire to remain, or not, within the Republic.
A choice made three times, and unequivocally, between 2018 and 2021. A democratic decision which closes the Caledonian self-determination process begun in 1988 and definitively anchors the territory within France and its institutions.
The Caledonians have chosen to remain French.
In a period when signs of affection for our beautiful country are lacking, this act of the heart deserves to be honored.
Out of respect for this choice, Caledonians must be freed from the unjust rules which violate the very first article of our Constitution, providing that French citizens are equal before the law and enjoy equal access to electoral mandates.
It is urgent to thaw the New Caledonian electorate.
It is appropriate, while respecting local political balances, to return to the spirit of the Nouméa agreement by re-establishing a ten-year rolling electoral body which allows those who wish and make the effort to participate in the economic and political development of New Caledonia.
An emergency which seems to be understood by the government which, through Gérald Darmanin, initiated a constitutional revision in this sense.
The future of New Caledonia must be built around a united people where no ethnic group can claim any superiority.
Sonia Backès
Beyond respecting the word of Caledonians, it is also up to the State to keep its own.
France, a country of human rights, prides itself on guaranteeing democracy everywhere on its territory.
The Caledonian case, however, creates a very embarrassing exception.
The balance of the weight of the provinces in the Congress must therefore imperatively be reviewed, otherwise New Caledonia is doomed to being maintained in a rigged political system where those who lose the elections still end up leading a population which rejects them.
An unacceptable reality for a French territory.
Above all, it is necessary to ensure that no administrative provision is any longer accessible because of one's ethnic origin, as is the case today for young adults under customary law with their automatic registration on local electoral lists.
The future of New Caledonia must be built around a united people where no ethnic group can claim any superiority.
It must be built around a political system which, if it respects local specificities, ensures normal democratic functioning.
Any other perspective is doomed to failure and will not fail to plunge the territory back into its darkest hours.