Macron, top leaders open New Caledonia’s summit in Paris

French President Emmanuel Macron and France's top leaders have on Wednesday welcomed a strong delegation from New Caledonia to officially open a set of several summits dedicated to the French Pacific territory.

A delegation from political leaders as well as representatives from New Caledonia's economic and civil society have converged to Paris over the past few days, responding to Macron's invitation for what he termed a "summit".

The summit will be made up of several formats: the political one will be held at a luxury hotel in the city of Bougival (West of Paris), behind closed doors with no limitation in time until an agreement on New Caledonia's political future status is found and agreed upon by both pro-independence and pro-France parties.

Political talks, sometimes dubbed the "last chance" meeting, were already underway in Bougival on Wednesday evening (Paris time), as soon as the official reception ended.

The reception involved most of France's top leaders, including the French Prime Minister François Bayrou, State Minister for Overseas Manuel Valls, both Presidents of the French National Assembly (Yaël Braun-Pivet) and the Senate (Gérard Larcher).

During a traditional "custom" ceremony of exchange of gifts between the Paris group and the delegation from New Caledonia, Macron's chief of staff Patrice Faure (who is a former French High Commissioner in New Caledonia), in line with Kanak protocol, spoke on behalf of the French President and presented a pen, "a pen, that could be used, we hope, to sign at least a compromise, if not an agreement, in the days or weeks to come".

"Here, just as in New Caledonia, there are people who suffer to see you going through all these sufferings", Faure told the visiting leaders, stressing the "indefectible links that unite us".

He also recalled the social, economic consequence of the May 2024 riots that have left 14 dead and over two billion Euros in material damages.

Macron's invitation was aiming at initiating "a dialogue that could guarantee a sustainable political, social and cultural equilibrium, adapted to New Caledonia's reality", "beyond antagonistic logic" and to "build a shared, balanced and lasting future".

The political talks are initially scheduled to last until this weekend, but are open-ended and could be extended if deemed necessary.

The Paris talks follow a series of roundtables during most of the first quarter of 2025, in Paris and in Nouméa, under the auspices of French Overseas Minister Manuel Valls.

Valls managed to bring back all political parties around the same table, something that had not happened since 2022.

But the last series of meetings, dubbed a political "conclave" stalled early May 2025 after two of the largest pro-France parties, Rassemblement-LR and Les Loyalistes, refused to endorse Valls's project, which was proposing a transfer of French key powers, a dual French-Caledonian citizenship, in what pro-France parties perceived as a form of independence.

Anti-independence parties maintain that following three referendums held between 2018 and 2021, the suggestion of an independent New Caledonia has been rejected three times and that, therefore, this democratic expression should be respected.

The last referendum in December 2021 was largely boycotted by the pro-independence movement.

Since the latest talks stalled, early May 2025, pro-France parties have been critical of the latest Valls proposal and have been lobbying with their mainland France (mostly right-wing) associates.

They also are adamant that offering a form of independence-association to the pro-independence side would be a way of surrendering to the 2024 insurrectional violence that marked the riots.

French national politics steps in

Last week, Bruno Retailleau, French Minister for Home Affairs and newly-elected President of the right-wing Les Républicains (LR) party (one of the prominent parties represented at the Lower House -National Assembly-) appointed New Caledonia's President Alcide Ponga one of his "special advisors".

The LR party also threatened several times that if a political agreement on New Caledonia was written and approved outside France, Retailleau and his party would withdraw its support to Macron.

"Bruno Retailleau, who is the Minister for Home Affairs, was very clear on this. If tomorrow, the government as a whole was to support an independence line on New Caledonia, it is absolutely obvious that we would leave the government without delay", LR Vice-President François-Xavier Bellamy (who recently visited New Caledonia) told local media.

Mixed reactions and sometimes reservations

Macron's new approach is however triggering mixed reactions and sometimes reservations from New Caledonia's political parties, who mostly remain in the dark as to the French President's proposal details.

The pro-France side believes that a "new approach" from Macron appears to address the issues they are defending, but they are still seeking clarifications from Paris.

"What does France want for New Caledonia?", National Assembly MP Nicolas Metzdorf has been asking several times, including during question time in Parliament.

He told French media earlier this week he was looking for "an agreement, not a compromise".

Metzdorf and his associates are supporting another proposal of an "asymmetrical internal federalism" which purports to grant more autonomy (including in terms of tax revenue collection) for each of the three provinces in New Caledonia.

This, they said, would provide for each province (Northern, Loyalty Islands and Southern provinces) to develop at their own respective paces, bearing in mind that the Southern province is the richest of all three, with the bulk of New Caledonia's population and the other two are mostly rural and populated by the Kanak indigenous community.

On the pro-independence side, which consists of the FLNKS (Kanak Socialists National Liberation Front), dominated by prominent Union Calédonienne party, but also the more moderate PALIKA (Kanak Liberation Party) and UPM (Progressist Union in Melanesia), the official stance is that they will take the Valls "sovereignty with France" project as the only basis for talks to resume and that they will not settle for anything less.

"It won't take long to find out (if the Macron proposal) lasts", UC and FLNKS delegation leader Emmanuel Tjibaou said earlier this week.

Tjibaou said his delegation "does not have the mandate to discuss any other proposal".

Other "middle" moderate parties, Wallisian-based Eveil Océanien and pro-France Calédonie Ensemble, also tend to support France's latest proposal, but with nuances as per their own respective draft proposals.

During a recent interview on Tuesday with French media BFMTV, Valls maintained he remained optimistic as to the outcome of the Bougival talks.

"There's no other choice, we have to find a solution. It's complicated because we have to reconcile two contradictory aspirations: for New Caledonia to remain part of France and an aspiration to a full independence".

"But I am still hopeful. Our dialogue is not ruptured", he said.

"I believe an agreement is possible, because everyone is aware that the situation is extremely fragile and perilous and that without an agreement, it is impossible to rebuild New Caledonia, economically and socially (...) With the germs of a social explosion".

"Links with France will always be there, no matter what", he assured.

A separate socio-economic summit

Separate from the strictly political talks, another "economic and social summit" later this week will bring together New Caledonia's economic, social and civil society stakeholders, as well as mayors, in order to address the consequences of the May 2024 riots.

It takes place in another hotel near Paris, focusing on four key themes: public finance, structural reforms, economic diversification, a new society project and the crucial nickel mining industry.