The indigenous Kanak inhabitants, who largely favor independence, had known as for non-participation within the referendum as a result of they’re in a 12-month mourning interval following a September surge in COVID-19 coronavirus infections.
Provisional outcomes printed by French authorities confirmed assist for a “no” to independence was at 96.5%, whereas turnout stood at 43.9%. Sunday’s vote, the third and closing poll on the problem, follows two earlier polls in 2018 and 2020 by which the “no” vote bought 57% and 53% respectively.
“The Caledonians have chosen to stay French. They determined that freely,” French President Emmanuel Macron stated in a televised deal with.
“We cannot ignore that the voters remained deeply divided over time,” he added. “A interval of transition is now beginning.”
New Caledonia’s congress president, Roch Wamytan, a pro-independence chief, stated he regretted the French authorities had rejected their name to postpone the third referendum to September 2022 out of respect for native mourning customs.
“This referendum, for us, shouldn’t be the third referendum. We take into account that there are solely two reliable referendums. 2018 and 2020. This referendum is the referendum of the French state, not ours,” he stated on Franceinfo radio.
Analysts worry a “no” vote will anger independence supporters, creating instability.
“The worst of situations? A “no” vote which bans independence, however whose legitimacy is rejected by the Kanaks by way of a large abstention charge motivated by Paris’s refusal to postpone the vote,” François Heisbourg, an analyst for the IISS think-tank, stated on Twitter.
One of 5 island territories spanning the Indo-Pacific held by France, New Caledonia is the centerpiece of Macron’s plan to extend its affect within the Pacific.
Sunday’s vote is the third prescribed by a deal hammered out a decade after talks on the island’s future started in 1988, and which known as for a sequence of independence referendums.
Fighting erupted within the Eighties within the nickel-rich territory, 1,200 kilometers (750 miles) east of Australia and 20,000 kilometers (12,000 miles) from France, between supporters of independence and those that wished to remain French.