Campaigning in full swing as New Caledonia heads toward crucial provincial elections

Political parties in New Caledoania are now in full campaigning mode for the French Pacific territory's provincial elections.

The campaign officially opened on Monday and will last until 26 June 2026 at midnight local time.

The crucial poll, involving over 190,000 voters (as part of a recently revised, but still restricted electoral roll) is scheduled to take place on Sunday, 28 June.

The campaign will be carried out on the ground, at rallies and on posters, but also in dematerialised mode, on the Internet and social media.

On the security front, the French High Commission in New Caledonia has been allocated and is maintaining a high level of security forces (both gendarmerie and police).

Among the recently reported incidents, investigations are ongoing regarding the mass theft of some 37 telecommunication poles in the small rural town of Poum (Northern tip of the main island, Grande Terre) last week.

The equipment belongs to OPT (Office des Postes et Télécommunications), New Caledonia's telecom operator.

The poles were sawn off at road level on a distance of over 1 Km and taken away.

Poum mayor Marc Tidjine called on the population to be "responsible".

"It's difficult to bring people together with such incidents that go in the wrong direction", he said.

A number of cash ATMs were also vandalised last week in Nouméa.

French PM warns on potential digital foreign interference threat

French Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu made a direct reference to New Caledonia's upcoming provincial elections last week when, during a media conference in Paris, he warned against risks related to "interference" during elections.

Lecornu cited a recent report from the French digital watchdog agency Viginum.

He said French authorities would remain "vigilant" because previous Viginum reports had detected earlier cases of foreign digital interference, especially during the May 2024 riots and related unrest that caused 14 deaths and over €2 billion in material damage.

Regular monitoring is intended in order to react, if needed, in real time to alert voters and expose any potential digital-based attack or attempt of disinformation.

Lecornu said in the case of New Caledonia, there was a particular vulnerability, related to New Caledonia's "situation in the Pacific" and earlier cases of foreign interference.

"Foreign digital interference is a growing threat to democratic life and debate", Lecornu told reporters.

He said the risk was especially potent with "heavy threats" anticipated at France's presidential elections in April 2027.

On television and radio, candidates will also be granted time to broadcast their respective political messages, under the watch of French media watchdog ARCOM (Audiovisual and Digital Communication Authority) which monitors and supervises speech time count.

Candidates already mobilised

As for the list of political parties and candidates contesting the poll, the two main blocs, for and against independence of New Caledonia, are the pro-France united list that brings together Les Loyalistes, Rassemblement-LR, Génération NC.

The pro-independence FLNKS (Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front, including Union Calédonienne) is one of the main components of the pro-independence movement.

But this year, a UNI (Union Nationale pour l'Indépendance) movement is also running separately after its two main pillars, PALIKA (Kanak Liberation Party) and UPM (Union Progressiste en Mélanésie) broke away from FLNKS in August 2024, citing profound divergences on the approach to New Caledonia's independence process.

This year's poll is also seeing the emergence of a record number of "moderate" and "central" lists advocating for a "middle way" and distancing themselves from the confrontational approach from the two main blocks.

But these small lists also run the risk of contributing to a dispersion of votes and not reaching the required threshold of 5 percent of registered voters.

Some of the dominating themes during this campaign are a direct result of the current situation in New Caledonia, two years after the violent unrest that also exacerbated an already difficult economic and social situation, leaving thousands jobless due to the destruction of several hundreds of businesses.

Transport and health

Among the main sectors also affected by the situation are transport and health.

On the transport scene, links have been seriously disrupted especially between Nouméa and the outer Loyalty Island (North-east).

This remains the case for domestic flights operated by local company Air Calédonie, due to a blockade organised by a group of users who want to protest against a recent decision to move its operations from the small and nearby airport of Magenta to the international airport of La Tontouta (located over 50 Km away from the capital's downtown district).

The blockade has not yet been fully resolved, but flights to the Isle of Pines (South of Nouméa) and more recently (early June) Lifou were restored.

This leaves the Loyalty Islands of Maré and Ouvéa still not operational.

On the sea, maritime connections via the ferry "Betico" have also been largely disrupted by a series of mechanical faults, leaving the connection highly unreliable.

A group of vessel staff has announced it would go on strike during the three days preceding the 28 June elections.

This was to protest against delays to speed up a new project to have a new catamaran vessel, the Betico 3, built for a total estimated cost of some US$33 million.

This was to replace the ageing Betico 2.

But New Caledonia's Congress and government have yet to approve and endorse the financial dossier which would unlock the required deposit (US$2.7m) with the shipbuilder, Austal.

In the health sector, the situation is also perceived as critical with many rural areas struggling to maintain an acceptable level of service to the population.

In several areas, patients in need of care have to cope with reduced setups, mostly due to the absence of medical staff.

In some areas, the services have had to be reorganised and mutualised, sometimes working on a skeleton mode and resorting more often to telemedicine with remote practitioners.

New Caledonia's government, over the past two years, has tried to implement strategies to foster the security of medical practitioners and to incite them to stay at their posts.

It has also initiated a campaign to recruit more overseas-based doctors to fill the vacant positions.