The Uneasy Peace: New Caledonia's Matignon Accords at Mid-Term

Abstract

FOR MOST OF THE 1980s, bitter conflicts punctuated by open violence characterized the politics of the small French Pacific territory of New Caledonia. Over forty people were killed and property damage ran into millions of dollars. But since mid-1988, more peaceful conditions have mainly been present. The turning point came on 26 June 1988, when Michel Rocard, the socialist prime minister of France, signed agreements with the representatives of the two main political blocs in New Caledonia, the Melanesian nationalists and their loyalist opponents. These agreements, along with others signed later that year, were endorsed by a national French referendum held in November 1988. The various agreements and associated legislation, which are generally known as the Matignon Accords,' have provided the framework for an interim settlement, planned to conclude in 1998 with a referendum on New Caledonia's constitutional future. With this settlement at its halfway mark, it is timely to examine developments so far and the responses to them. An examination is especially apt because 1993 was the international Year of Indigenous Peoples, and because uncertainties over the settlement during the latter half of its projected span increased when the Socialist government lost office in the