Photo shows the Tjibaou Cultural Centre in Noumea. It's named after the 1980s kanak resistance leader, Jean-Claude Tjibaou, who was assassinated in 1989. The centre was meant to showcase kanak culture, as an appeasement gesture after violence had torn New Cal. apart in the mid 1980s. The structures are meant to resemble traditional kanak houses, deliberately incomplete to symbolise the fact that kanak society is in transition.

New Caledonia / Nouvelle Caledonie is one of the Pacific Ocean's and the world's last colonial outposts. It is, at least for now, a sort-of French overseas territory with limited autonomy. With 25% of the world's nickel reserves and 29% of its population ethnic French, there's an understandable reluctance to loosen the grip on La Metropole's apron strings, as well as its handy 25% subsidy. The only stumbling block is the fact that 40% of the population is kanak / indigenous Melanesians and the majority of them don't want to be French.

There's a new referendum next year on independence, but it's easy to see that there's a gulf between the two main communities here. The French, both Caldoches (Caledonian born French) and metros (from the metropole) have the Paciifc's highest standard of living, propped up by the nickel mining industry and French subsidies, while the kanaks, especially the young, have the lowest.

France colonised the territory 160 odd years ago and what happened next followed a familiar pattern. The kanaks lost a lot of their land, disease decimated their population, insurrection was put down, discrimination saw immigrant Polynesians and South East Asians get the majority of the unskilled and semi skilled jobs while the French monopolised the highest paid, managerial and supervisory roles.

The seventies and eighties saw a revival of kanak resistance. Not long after our 1985 and 1987 visits gendarmes were killed and kept hostage, kanak militants were killed, too. Things have calmed down since two accords were signed, the latest in 1998, guaranteeing a move towards independence via a referendum in 2018. France has poured money in to schools and health facilities, but there's still a 40% unemployment rate amongst kanak youth who, like many Maori youth in NZ, are disoriented and feel neither a part of the European world or their traditional past, with inevitable consequences easy to observe around Noumea in the form of almost wall to wall graffitti.

New Caledonia is a beautiful country and we always enjoy visiting it. It's got first world facilities we enjoy, like marine reserves, hiking trails and camping facilities. Our red, EU passports give us "unlimited time" here as long as Brexit is staved off and until Nouvelle Caledonie becomes Kanakie. It will be high on our list for a re visit but it's hard to say what the future holds for this fractured community.




Two of the Tjibaou Cultural Centre's "cases", with a model traditional kanak house in the foreground.



The Noumea peninsula from 800m Mt Dore





Looking South towards Isle Ouen and the Southern lagoon from Mt Dore. New Cal. has some good hiking opportunities, including the 6 day GR1, complete with the familiar red and white GR striped balises