In his speech to FLNKS meeting on Saturday in #New Caledonia, FLNKS spokesperson Daniel Goa throws down the gauntlet to France’s Overseas Minister Sébastien Lecornu, who has suggested that a third referendum might canvas a range of options, rather than Yes/No on independence.

Daniel Goa: “The Minister doesn’t understand that independence is not just an ‘option’ – it is the inalienable right of the Kanak people, regained after a long, painful struggle. It is a right that has been recognised today by the highest international organisations.”

Goa: “When the Minister finally understands, we will look again at how we might take up political negotiations with him. To this end, we would remind him that the Noumea Accord is an agreement on decolonisation. But everything has its own time. First, the Southern smelter.”

A new ‘mining pre-condition’? “No discussion on the political future of New Caledonia is possible…unless the issue of the sale of Vale NC’s smelter is resolved in a satisfactory manner, that’s to say, in the spirit of the Noumea Accord, through rebalancing and decolonisation.”