New Caledonia’s anti-colonial uprising will delight Russia and China

Voting fever is sweeping the nation, electoral rolls are being checked, the old guard is on the back foot, change is in the air, and the French army has been sent in to re-establish order even as the price of nickel has risen 20 per cent. Wait… What!

Yes – “Republican order in its entirety will be re-established”, said President Emmanuel Macron after landing in the Pacific territory of New Caledonia to join the 3,000 French troops deployed to end two weeks of rioting which have left six people dead. What’s that got to do with the price of nickel? A lot. New Caledonia is the world’s fourth biggest supplier of the metal, the third is Russia, which we’ll come back to. But first, some history and some geography.

The archipelago that makes up New Caledonia lies 930 miles east of Australia (and 10,000 miles south of France). It was annexed in 1853 after the French colonialists realised its strategic value and mineral wealth and it became a French overseas territory in 1946. Since then, opposition to France has grown among the indigenous Kanak population which now makes up only about 112,000 of the roughly 270,000 strong population. The descendants of the European colonists, and people from France who have moved there in recent decades, are known as “Caldoches”.

In the 1980s, a pro-independence movement led by the Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front resulted in a wave of violence akin to a civil war. The Front also said that Kanak youths were discriminated against by the European population. A roadmap to increased autonomy calmed things down and resulted in the Noumea Accord (1998). This limited local voting to those who were residents at the time, and their descendants.

The Accord allowed three referenda on independence. In the first, held in 2018, the pro-independence movement won 43 per cent of the vote. In 2020 they were up to 47 per cent. The third was held a year later in highly contested circumstances during the Covid pandemic. This was boycotted by the pro-independence side leading to a 96 per cent vote to stay with France and accusations that the result was illegitimate.

However, the French government argued that the terms of the Noumea Accord had been implemented and that now the restrictions on voting needed to be reformed. Earlier this month, the National Assembly in Paris approved a new law to allow French residents who’ve lived in New Caledonia for ten years the right to vote in provincial elections. 

In 2020, the separatists were less than 10,000 votes short of victory. If the new law is also approved by the upper chamber, 25,000 voters will be added to the local electoral rolls. As most would probably vote to stay with France in a future referendum, the independence movement would stand no chance of victory.

Hence the unrest that broke out on 13 May gathered pace, leading to a state of emergency being declared. Roadblocks were erected, roads damaged, about 400 buildings set on fire, and ATMs looted leading to a shortage of cash. Banks were closed and essential goods rationed. The French army was called in to secure key strategic points and the police have made almost 300 arrests.

Then the French Interior Minister dropped a diplomatic grenade into the already volatile situation. Gerald Darmanin said that Azerbaijan had a hand in the violence. “This isn’t a fantasy,” he said, adding: “I regret that some of the Caledonian independence leaders have made a deal with Azerbaijan, that’s undeniable”. Azerbaijan immediately denied it. French officials have also pointed the finger at Russia and China.

Evidence? A little. Last July, Azerbaijan invited separatists from New Caledonia and the French territories of Martinique, French Guiana, and French Polynesia to the capital, Baku, for a conference on decolonialisation. Late last year, according to Europe 1 radio, two Azerbaijani women who posed as journalists to try and enter New Caledonia were allegedly working for the intelligence services in Baku. In March of this year, Azerbaijani flags were flown at an independence rally in the New Caledonian capital, Noumea.

Even when added to the fact that France traditionally supports Armenia in its ongoing territorial disputes with Azerbaijan, this does not add up to proof of Baku fermenting violence in the Pacific. It is, however, suspicious.

So was the large cyber-attack launched against New Caledonia shortly after Paris announced that Macron was to make a visit. The origin of the attack has not been made public, but France suspects that it came from Russia.

As for motive… here we are in the realm of speculation, but Azerbaijan’s motive would be to undermine France as payback for supporting Armenia, and as a favour to its friends in Moscow. Which brings us to back to nickel which is used in making high quality steel and increasingly for electric vehicle batteries.

About 13,000 people work in New Caledonia’s nickel industry, that’s more than 20 per cent of the workforce. However, the unrest has closed the nickel mines and reduced output has contributed to raising the price of nickel by 20 per cent.

Here’s where it gets even more complicated. One of the New Caledonian nickel mines produces a particularly high-quality type of nickel. Direct competitors for producing this quality product for the global market are Russia and China. At the same time as the New Caledonian mines were being closed, the London Metal Exchange and the Chicago Mercantile Exchange began enforcing UK and US sanctions against Russian nickel. And then, a Russian and a Chinese company announced a joint venture located in China which means the Russian nickel, now worth 20 per cent more than it was a few months ago, can probably be sold on the open market without incurring sanctions penalties.

If you are looking at this from Paris – it’s quite a coincidence that this is happening even as its Pacific territory which produced nickel is in chaos. That’s what, theoretically, is in it for Russia. China has even bigger fish to fry. All of them in the Pacific.

New Caledonia sits along some important shipping lanes. It is part of the territories which make up more than 90 per cent of France’s exclusive economic zone – the 200 nautical miles a country controls from its shoreline unless it has to share with a neighbour. This is among the reasons why France keeps more than 7,000 military personnel in the Indo-Pacific region, and why it occasionally sails a warship through the South China Sea. China would dearly love New Caledonia to break free from France, at which point it would move in diplomatically and economically. Secession from France would lead to other island nations considering their options.

It suits China, Russia, and Azerbaijan to undermine France, albeit for different reasons. This does not mean that the independence movement in New Caledonia is not driven by genuine dreams of self-determination, but it would be naive to think that bigger powers do not see opportunities there.

That is why the president of the Fifth Republic has hurried half way across the world to try and calm the situation. A pause in ratifying the new law might do it, but even if it does, other players have a vote on what happens in the future.

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