235 French officials have arrived from France on mid-september and immediately went in government-run facilities in Noumea for a two weeks quarantine.
They were joined by 13 magistrates coming from New Caledonia and Wallis and Futuna, a French territory located between Fiji and Samoa, which has a quarantine-free air link to Noumea.
These officials will help to supervise the second independence referendum of the Nouméa Accord, signed in 1998. The first of three possible referendums was held on November,4 2018, with voters rejecting independence by 57.6–43.3%.
The 235 have been deployed in the 241 polling stations. Observers are expected from the United Nations and the Pacific Islands Forum, but it is not known if regional monitors will be able to be present. To that date, New Caledonia has had 23 Covid-19 cases in managed isolation at the border and no community transmission.
