Negotiations are expected to resume with the Minister of Overseas territories on January 5.
New Caledonians will long remember this month of December 2020. There were indeed many demonstrations and damage to public buildings. A petrol station was set on fire, as well as the administrative buildings of the Southern Nickel Processing Plant. There were also violent clashes in the centre of Noumea between demonstrators and the police. The demonstrators refused to accept the takeover of the factory in the south by an oil trader, the Swiss company Trafigura. They want the factory to be bought by a consortium made up of a real metallurgical industrialist associated with Caledonian interests. The FLNKS, the main group of pro-independence parties, supports the demonstrators, even if it dissociates itself from the violence.
Discussions now take place at the level of the French government. A meeting by videoconference is to be held on 5 January with Sébastien Lecornu, Emmanuel Macron’s overseas minister. By then, the situation should be calm in Caledonia. One of the consequences of this political-industrial protest movement is that the Noumea town hall has cancelled all the Christmas animations and shows .
