Emmanuel Macron has enough problems at home and, to further complicate his presidency, disturbing news has reached him from a remote territory, French Polynesia, located 17,000 kilometers from Paris. The electoral victory of the independentistas in the regional elections on April 30 does not represent an immediate danger of secession, but it does open up this possibility in the medium term, which weakens France’s ambitions as a global power and favors the interests of expansionist China. In the pacific.
With 44.3% of the votes, the independence list (Tavini) obtained 38 of the 57 seats in the regional Assembly and will be able to govern alone. Two autonomist candidacies achieved a total of 57.7% of the votes, although when they ran separately they were only awarded, between them, 19 seats.
The independence leaders were quick to remember that French Polynesia has been on the United Nations list of territories in the process of decolonization since 2013. New Caledonia – other islands under French sovereignty in the Pacific – has been on the list since 1986.
Most of the French know about Polynesia because it is an exotic destination, with idyllic landscapes such as Bora Bora, Tahiti or the Marquesas Islands, where they can spend their holidays speaking their own language and where they find national signs such as the flag or the gendarmes.
Those over fifty years old also remember that there, in the Mururoa and Fangataufa atolls – between 1966 and 1996 – almost two hundred atomic tests were carried out. These tests, with their serious environmental and health consequences, are one of the factors of deep resentment towards the metropolis.
It has not really been the desire for independence that has most favored the secessionists. There have been several factors at play, such as the mismanagement of the covid pandemic by the outgoing regional president, Édouard, Fritch, and a new tax to finance local social security.
The independence movement is also nourished by the feeling that Polynesians are not treated well, despite the important transfer of funds from Paris to pay for public services. 25% of the population lives below the poverty line and inflation, due to the conditions of insularity and remoteness, is very high. Not everything, therefore, are postcard images.
French Polynesia, under the rule of Paris since 1842, is made up of five archipelagos with a total of 118 islands, of which 76 are inhabited. They are of volcanic or coral origin. They extend in a wide oceanic strip of more than 2,000 kilometers. They live about 300,000 people.
Unlike French Guiana (South America), Martinique and Guadeloupe (Caribbean), or Mayotte and La Réunion (Indian), French Polynesia is not an integral department of the Republic but simply an “overseas collectivity”, a link less strong and that, in theory, leaves the door open to an eventual separation. However, Paris shows no desire to give up its Polynesian islands. Given their isolated geographical location and their extension in the ocean, they alone bring together 5.5 million square kilometers of exclusive economic zones (EEZs), half of which are available to France, the second country in the world, after the United States. , with so many maritime exploitation rights.
On his last visit to Polynesia, in the summer of 2021, Macron insisted on the arguments for it to remain French. “In the times that are opening up, misfortune for the little ones, misfortune for the isolated, misfortune for those who are going to suffer the influences and incursions of the hegemonic powers that will come looking for their fishing, their technology, their economic resources,” he warned. the president, alluding to China.
Clearly, in the Pacific, a tough geopolitical battle is being waged. Two main players are China and the United States. France is the only European country with a territorial presence, thanks to Polynesia and New Caledonia. Beijing develops a very aggressive trade and security cooperation policy with various micro-states in the area, such as the Fiji Islands, the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu. The Chinese strategy to advance their pawns is multiple and sometimes they go as far as financially supporting secessionist movements, as has happened in the Federation of Micronesian States.
To defend its sovereignty over such vast oceanic territories, France is forced to maintain a modest but constant naval presence. She is currently conducting the annual Joan of Arc mission to train her officers in the Pacific.
The future president of French Polynesia, Moetai Brotherson, wanted to reassure Paris by saying that “we are not going to be independent tomorrow or next week”, and placed a possible self-determination referendum in ten or fifteen years. But he also found that there are almost 200 independent countries in the world and “independence is the norm, not the exception.”
Macron will no longer be president if secession is considered, but his successors at the Elysée will deal with a delicate issue that, despite the geographical distance, will impact what France is or wants to be.
