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French South Pacific Policy 1981-1996
by Dr W. S. McCallum © 1996
3. Wallis and Futuna
W.S. McCallum
Sir, we are the smallest and the most distant French Overseas Territory. Don't forget us!
Kamilo Gata, Deputy for Wallis and Futuna, addressing Louis Le Pensec, Minister
to the DOM-TOM, in the National Assembly, 8 November 1989.[i]
The Neglected Isles?
Wallisian feelings of neglect and abandonment were well encapsulated in the plea made by Gata to the Minister to the DOM-TOM in 1989. However the charge of state neglect of this TOM was difficult to substantiate and there was some reason to suggest that the comment made by Gata represented attention-catching declamation of the variety employed in debate over New Caledonia. Not so much forgotten as considered peripheral, Wallis and Futuna has always been of marginal concern to Paris. With its tiny surface area, no significant exports, and fewer residents than some Parisian boulevards, (Table 24) the territory was understandably far from representing a pressing administrative concern.
State expenditure on the territory has been comparatively low, although this is a reflection of the low population level in the islands, and the correspondingly modest scale of administrative services required there. Government spending in Wallis and Futuna amounted to just under 0.68% of total state expenditure in the DOM-TOM in 1987.[ii] By way of comparison, New Caledonia and French Polynesia were allocated respectively 13.12% and 16.37% of state DOM-TOM spending that year.[iii] In general such higher funding levels were due to the larger scale and populations of the rest of the DOM-TOM, although not in all cases. The French Antarctic, where the population consisted of 150 to 200 transient scientists,[iv] received 0.97% of state DOM-TOM expenditure in 1987.[v] Saint Pierre and Miquelon, with several thousand fewer inhabitants than Wallis and Futuna,[vi] obtained 1.05%.[vii] These higher levels of spending reflected the more intensive capital costs involved in maintaining French scientific programmes in the Antarctic, and in subsidising the deep sea fishing fleet at St Pierre and Miquelon. Funding for Wallis and Futuna constituted a proverbial drop in the fiscal bucket compared to spending in the other inhabited DOM-TOM.
As a result of the smallness and economic insignificance of Wallis and Futuna, the administration of the islands was inevitably of less concern to Paris than the other two Pacific TOM. While the three components of the French Pacific had the same constitutional status, the lower standing of Wallis and Futuna was reflected in the rank of the chief administrator there. Unlike New Caledonia and French Polynesia, each of which have a High Commissioner as proconsul, Wallis and Futuna is overseen by a Superior Administrator. Residing in Mata Utu, the territorial capital, the Superior Administrator is subordinate to the High Commissioner of New Caledonia, stationed in Nouméa over 2,100km south-west.[viii] The presence of a functionary subordinate to the High Commission in Nouméa has been regarded as unsatisfactory by Wallisian leaders. In December 1986, custom chiefs proposed that the status of Wallis and Futuna be upgraded by the appointment of a High Commissioner to each of the islands' three kingdoms.[ix] These grandiose aspirations were not heeded by Paris, which continues to hold the status of the three kingdoms in the territory in lower administrative esteem than their inhabitants would prefer. This gap between local feelings of self-importance and French administrative practice has been a major contributing factor to the Wallisian impression of being neglected by Paris.
As might be expected when viewed from Paris, Wallis and Futuna has had a minimal profile in state planning and national political debate. When they mentioned Wallis and Futuna at all, the Eighth and Ninth Plans for the DOM-TOM, from 1981 to 1988, made only passing mention of the territory, sometimes alongside more detailed discussion of New Caledonia and French Polynesia.[x] Scant attention has been paid to Mata Utu in Parliament. The Journal Officiel contains hundreds of pages of debate and legislation concerning New Caledonia and French Polynesia in the period under examination, but very little discussion of Wallis and Futuna. The debate by the National Assembly on the DOM-TOM in June 1980 offered no more than brief reference to the territory, and that was largely thanks to the intervention of Benjamin Brial, then the RPR Deputy for Wallis and Futuna, who berated Dijoud for the alleged parsimoniousness of state funding to the islands.[xi] This incident reflected a general trend in the treatment of Wallis and Futuna in the National Assembly. Parliamentary consideration of the TOM tends to amount to no more than a few minutes' mention of its financial situation in annual DOM-TOM budget debates, with an accompanying intervention from the Wallisian Deputy to complain about the tardiness and supposed inadequacy of state assistance.[xii] This treatment should not be considered inappropriate. Few small towns in metropolitan French with fewer than 15,000 inhabitants receive such attention at this level, and it could be argued by government officials in Paris that the amount of attention paid to Wallis and Futuna is in fact disproportionately high.
When the French Government devoted attention to its Pacific territories, Nouméa and Papeete understandably received priority attention ahead of Mata Utu. In the 1980s New Caledonian civil disorder and the complicated balancing act involved in satisfying the conflicting demands of its different political groups assumed greater importance than the development needs of placid Wallis and Futuna. Similarly, the strategic role of French Polynesia as the base for the French nuclear testing programme far outweighed what intangible benefits Wallis and Futuna's adherence to the Republic might provide. While various French commentators have asserted the importance of New Caledonia to France due to its mineral deposits, and French Polynesia's significance because of its nuclear role, few have offered convincing arguments of a similar nature for Wallis and Futuna.[xiii] In 1985 Pierre Messmer described the territory as having strategic value because its position in the central Pacific was becoming more important with the passing of time.[xiv] The strategic potential of Wallis and Futuna was as unfulfilled as that of the Chatham Islands. Any strategic resource worth Wallis and Futuna might enjoy was not distinguishably different from that of any other small island in the South Pacific with a largely unexploited and unexplored EEZ. Were Wallis and Futuna considered to be of increasing military strategic value by Paris, a military presence to guard it was the least that might be expected, yet no significant force had been based in Wallis and Futuna since US troops were stationed there during World War II.[xv]
Ministerial level visits to Wallis and Futuna during the 1980s offered no hint that the islands were soon to undergo transformation into a new hub for French geostrategy. Few metropolitan French parliamentarians could lay claim to having visited Wallis and Futuna, indeed few had any need to do so. Each government representative for the DOM-TOM tended to make at least one trip to the islands during his term in office. Such excursions were usually part of a broader itinerary. Emmanuelli passed through on 12 August 1981 as part of his introductory tour of the Pacific TOM.[xvi] Lemoine visited in December 1983 after consultations with New Caledonian leaders.[xvii] Bernard Pons spent greater time in the islands than his predecessors, having travelled there in May 1986 before being appointed Minister to the DOM-TOM, as well as having paid visits in September and December 1986, in December 1987, and in March 1988.[xviii] As a result, he was comparatively well acquainted with Wallis and Futuna. Only one French President, of the Fifth or of any other Republic, has visited Wallis: Giscard d'Estaing passed through on 24 July 1979.[xix] His stop was tacked on to the end of a tour of French Polynesia. The itineraries of Jacques Chirac and Michel Rocard, the two French Prime Ministers who visited the territory in the 1980s, followed a similar pattern. The first prime ministerial visit by Chirac to Wallis, for two days in September 1986, was made in between tours of New Caledonia and French Polynesia.[xx] Chirac's time in the territory was novel in that it included what Le Monde described as a "flea's hop" to Futuna for a few hours.[xxi] The arrival of Rocard in Mata Utu on 24 August 1989 was a one day stop on a tour that encompassed Australia, New Caledonia, Fiji and French Polynesia.[xxii] With the exception of Pons, none of these metropolitan French politicians could claim any intimate first-hand acquaintance with Wallis and Futuna on the basis of their brief stays. Considering the breadth and scale of their other ministerial responsibilities, this state of affairs was entirely appropriate. Again, by way of comparison, there existed in metropolitan France hundreds of villages the same size as Mata Utu which could not claim to have received this number of high-level official visits since 1979. While lobbying for improved local body funding their Mayors might also claim, not disinterestedly, to be neglected. As is the case with the plea made by Gata, such arguments should not be taken at face value.
Long Distance Dependency
Lying 20,000km and twelve time zones away from Paris, Wallis and Futuna is further from the capital than either New Caledonia or French Polynesia.[xxiii] The remoteness of the territory from Paris is compounded by its physical isolation from its South Pacific neighbours. Of the Pacific TOM, the comments made by the Eighth Plan on the need to reduce isolation applied to Wallis and Futuna to the greatest degree, as the islands were not as well served by external air and sea links. Two weekly Boeing 737 return flights link Wallis with Fiji, New Caledonia and French Polynesia.[xxiv] Until 1990, territorial shipping consisted of a 1,620t cargo vessel, the Moana III, owned by the Wallisian Navigation Company, which made annually ten or eleven return voyages to Wallis and Futuna from Nouméa.[xxv] Maritime activity in the territory was diversified in 1991 when Translink Pacific Shipping, a New Zealand-based company, opened a route between Wallis and Fiji. In addition to 12 return voyages made by the Moana III in 1991, three Translink vessels made 14 return voyages to Wallis that year.[xxvi] These air and sea routes are important for the territory, although they involve small-scale and infrequent activity by comparison with those of New Caledonia or French Polynesia. For example, around 21 weekly international flights landed at Fa'aa airport on Tahiti during 1991, and 2,100 port calls were made at Papeete that year.[xxvii] Once again though, all things are relative. The population of French Polynesia is over ten times greater than that of Wallis and Futuna. The larger tourist trade in French Polynesia, the greater westernisation of the territorial population (and the consequently greater reliance on imported goods), and the operations of the nuclear testing programme were contributing factors to this higher level of traffic.
Of the two main islands, Wallis enjoys better communications with the outside world, leaving Futuna disadvantaged within the wider territorial isolation. The higher population level of Wallis (Table 21),[xxviii] and the longer history of a French presence there, have resulted in various advantages over Futuna. Wallis enjoys the prestige and benefits of the territorial capital, with its resident Superior Administrator, public servants, and the Catholic Archbishop. Wallis experienced modernisations such as the introduction of sealed roads, running water and electricity, before Futuna. Its cash economy is also larger than that of Futuna. Futuna has a domestic airport which reduces, but fails to eliminate, its isolation. Over 200km lie between the island and Wallis, a gap bridged by four weekly return flights. The aircraft which services this route, a Twin Otter capable of transporting 15 passengers, does so thanks to the benevolence of the State. The plane itself was donated to the territory by the Chirac Government in 1986,[xxix] and its financially unviable route is kept open with state subsidies.[xxx] From Paris Futuna, along with the Marquesas Islands, and inland Guyane, rates as one of the most inaccessible permanently inhabited parts of the DOM-TOM.
Wallis and Futuna holds the dual distinction of being France's most distant and dependent possession. The economic limitations of the islands presented a small albeit recalcitrant challenge to the Eighth Plan's general goal of diversifying economic activity in the DOM-TOM. Of all the DOM-TOM, it was in Wallis and Futuna that the indicators of economic dependence on metropolitan France painted by the plan were most marked. And of the inhabitants in the DOM-TOM, Wallis and Futuna's population faced the greatest developmental obstacles with the smallest means. In spite of the growth of tertiary sector economic activity, during the decades since becoming a TOM in 1961, Wallis and Futuna retained its reliance on traditional subsistence agriculture, supplemented with some lagoon fishing. Possibilities for the expansion of the traditional economy were limited by geographical constraints. Only around a quarter of the territorial land area was suited to agriculture.[xxxi] Population growth in Wallis and Futuna in the second half of the twentieth century had created unprecedented pressure on natural resources. The resultant diminished chances of living comfortably and gaining social advancement within the tribal milieu through the inheritance of land, along with the attraction of paid employment in New Caledonia and in the New Hebrides, led to widespread emigration from the 1950s to the late 1970s.[xxxii] By 1983, more Wallisians were living in New Caledonia than in Wallis and Futuna.[xxxiii] For those who remained in tribal society, economic life was largely cashless, being centred on barter. In 1982, approximately 79% of the working population in the territory were essentially unwaged and engaged in subsistence agriculture. The lifestyle of the remaining 21% differed markedly, consisting mainly of salaried workers in public service.[xxxiv]
Local commerce was, and continues to be, of a limited nature. In 1982 licensed businesses in the territory numbered 120. In Mata Utu, cash trade revolved around two small supermarkets, a hardware store with the territory's sole petrol station, two car dealerships, a garage, two butchers' and two clothes stores.[xxxv] Mata Utu also possessed the only bank in Wallis and Futuna, a branch of the Indosuez Bank which opened in 1977.[xxxvi] These businesses were mainly owned by Europeans.[xxxvii] Immigrants to Wallis and Futuna were concentrated in non-agricultural employment. In 1983 296 non-indigenous inhabitants were resident in the territory, of whom around 200 were French Europeans.[xxxviii] Of the total immigrant population, which included unemployed dependents, 43.91% (130) were employed in non-agricultural work.[xxxix] A far lower level of indigenous participation in paid employment existed. A total of 991 local Polynesians were in paid positions in 1983; 7.99% of the indigenous population.[xl]
The presence of salaried public service employees alongside unwaged subsistence agriculturalists was a source of profound economic inequality which official statistics tended to mask. In 1983 average GDP per capita for Wallis and Futuna amounted to 1,569F CFP.[xli] By Western standards, and by the standards of the other Pacific TOM, this amount was low. (Tables 1, 33) However this figure, to an even greater extent than GDP per capita figures for New Caledonia and French Polynesia, was a classic misuse of the arithmetic mean. As in the other Pacific TOM, because of the large gap in income between those who essentially earned little or no money and those inhabitants who had jobs, average per capita income statistics are rendered nonsensical. Wallisians living outside the cash economy and local public service employees marked the two extreme poles in this inequitable distribution of wealth. In 1982 an estimated 520 public servants working in Wallis and Futuna enjoyed a relatively affluent lifestyle on double pay in a personal income tax-free environment.[xlii]
For the territory the post-World War II era entailed a period of expansion for the tertiary sector in the absence of substantial secondary sector economic activities.[xliii] The narrowness of territorial development was such that certain basic economic assumptions inherent in the Eighth Plan could not be applied there. The goal in the Eighth Plan of expanding light industry in the DOM-TOM represented an irrelevancy to the islands. Wallis and Futuna possessed inadequate resources and population to sustain modern manufacturing. Were light industry to be established in the territory, it would of necessity have to be export-orientated for want of a sizeable local market, but no promising potential foreign markets existed in any case.
Manufacturing in Wallis and Futuna largely consisted of artisanal activities and construction work. What little export activity existed consisted of international sales of stamps, trochus or top shells, some handicrafts, fruit, and vegetables. (Table 22) Trochus shells, the only product exported in sufficient volume to merit the compilation of official export statistics, were sold to trinket manufacturers in Italy. Most handicrafts, fruit, and vegetables were sold piecemeal in Nouméa.[xliv] Trochus exports increased substantially in the 1980sthe annual tonnage shipped rose from 1.5t in 1983 to 88.2t in 1990.[xlv] During this period the value of trochus exports climbed rapidly, from 0.15MF CFP in 1983, to 35.28MF CFP in 1990.[xlvi] Production was erratic however. It was disrupted in 1986 due to cyclone damage, and in 1991 the amount exported dropped to 17t because of cyclone Ofa.[xlvii] The future of trochus exports, like that of the subsistence economy, is conditioned by resource limits. Any attempt to expand harvesting beyond existing levels threatens resource sustainability.[xlviii]
Economic disequilibrium in Wallis and Futuna was the consequence of a growing dependence on imports, mainly food, fuel, construction materials and consumer goods.[xlix] By the 1980s this trend had led to a profound external trade imbalance. (Table 22) There was probably a link between this progression and the increasing numbers of the population in paid employment, who could afford consumer goods beyond the means of most of the population. However, this assumption is difficult to substantiate as detailed statistics are lacking concerning the precise nature of imported items. Rising import levels were also caused by the general expansion of public works and the periodic need for construction materials in bulk after cyclone damage. Imports have continued increasing in tonnage and value since the early 1980s. In 1983, the territory imported 10,324t of goods, worth 950MF CFP.[l] By 1990 imports amounted to around 17,000t, a gain on the 1989 level of 14,000t due to the burst of reconstruction activity after cyclone Ofa hit Wallis and Futuna in February 1990.[li] In 1991, imports fell to 15,500t.[lii] There are no figures available on the value of imports since 1986, as they have not been compiled since then. In 1985 however, the 8,905t imported were worth 1,219MF CFP.[liii] Historically imports have arrived via Nouméa. In 1990, 12,000t travelled this route.[liv] The diversification of shipping since 1990 has led to the arrival of imports via a greater number of entrepôts. In 1991 4,335t arrived via Nouméa, 5,764t via New Zealand, 4,763t via Suva, and 638t via Vanuatu.[lv]
The economic possibilities that expanded tourism offered the French Pacific, as mentioned in the Eighth Plan, did not stretch to encompassing Wallis and Futuna. Far from major air and shipping routes, rendered inaccessible by the limited number of connecting international flights, lacking in hotel accommodation and tourist attractions, and largely unheard of by the outside world, the territory was not a promising base for tourism. Mata Utu offered only 25 hotel rooms in the mid-1980s, while Futuna had no hotel.[lvi] Attracting tourists to the islands was problematic. Wallis and Futuna's lack of an international reputation as remarkable as that of French Polynesia, and its deficiency in facilities, posed considerable barriers to growth of tourism.
Although not as large a proposition as the resolution of New Caledonian troubles, the stimulation of durable economic development in Wallis and Futuna presented an intractable problem in the 1980s. Overcoming the narrow population and resource base in Wallis and Futuna, as well as its physical isolation, to implement the economic modernisation and regional integration optimistically proposed by the Eighth Plan represented an impossible challenge to Paris.
The Political Landscape
The election of Mitterrand in 1981 was an event which dismayed the local conservative Polynesian electorate. For the flowering of the Socialist rose, few less propitious places existed than Wallis and Futuna. The PS and other political parties of the French Left had no representatives in the Territorial Assembly, and few sympathisers among the indigenous population. In the last vestige of the French Republic to retain kingdoms, where Giscardians were regarded as dangerous radicals, where 85% of the population was church-going,[lvii] there was no room for Mitterrandian Socialism. Political life centred on attempts by the growing Giscardian camp to wrest power from local Gaullists, who had dominated territorial politics since the early 1960s. Giscard d'Estaing's following increased during the 1970s thanks to the advent of young liberals discontented with the Gaullist hegemony over territorial representation.[lviii] Local voters heavily supported Giscard d'Estaing in both rounds of the presidential elections in 1981. (Table 23) In the first round, he obtained a healthy majority of 60.08% of votes cast, followed by an impressive 97.37% in the second round. As well as reflecting the activism of local Giscardians, this mass support was partially due to Wallisian recognition of the incumbent's broader national support than Chirac. The unprecedented amount of interest the President had shown in Wallis and Futuna by actually visiting it was an additional source of popularity that should not be underestimated.
To an extent greater still than in New Caledonia, the political aspirations of local voters in 1981 were hostile to the PS, and out of tune with metropolitan French support for a Socialist future. Mitterrand gained a derisory 26 votes in Wallis and Futuna in the first round of the presidential elections, 0.54% of votes cast. In the second round, that total grew to a still insubstantial 113 votes, just 2.30% of votes cast. The bulk of Mitterrand's second round total probably consisted mainly of protest votes lodged by disenchanted supporters of the RPR. By the time of the legislative elections in June, some locals had shown enough interest in a Socialist future to organise a local PS candidate, M. Ata, although the response to his candidature from the territorial electorate was low. He received 175 votes, 3.34% of votes cast. (Table 24) The second round of the elections was to be a runoff between the local Gaullist and Giscardian candidates, a competition won by Brial. Ata participated in the territorial elections of 21 March 1982, thus holding the distinction of being the first PS candidate to stand for election to the assembly. The response of local voters was not enthusiastic. He gained only 144 votes, 2.83% of valid votes.[lix]
Not only were Wallis and Futuna's voting patterns discordant with those of metropolitan France in 1981, so too was its social structure. The territory stood as a bizarre anachronism in the context of Socialist plans for social renovation. Traditional Polynesian social structures, modified by the cultural penetration of Catholicism in the nineteenth century, formed a prevailing conservatism that had survived largely because of the isolation of Wallis and Futuna from the rest of the world. Wallis and Futuna was unique in being the only part of France where social systems akin to feudalism persisted. The three kings in the territory sat at the head of monarchies which had retained their cultural and political integrity since 1842, when Wallis informally became a French protectorate at the instigation of Lavelua Soane Patita, the king of Wallis at that time.[lx] Although some Church canons, such as the proscription of contraception,[lxi] were being abandoned by locals, the population remained more devoutly Catholic than the inhabitants of metropolitan France. Church and custom authority operated powerful brakes on change in Wallis and Futuna. By 1981, their powers had been but partially eroded by cultural and political forces from France.
The French State had however been a major impetus for change in Wallis and Futuna, particularly since the islands had lost their protectorate status under the Fifth Republic and became a TOM on 29 July 1961, on the promulgation of the territorial statute. On 27 December 1959, 94% of votes cast in a territorial self-determination referendum had backed integration into the Fifth Republic.[lxii] Locals decided that continued association with France offered the islands a more secure future than the uncertainties independence would have implied. Under the protectorate, the Church had held greater authority in the islands than the State. Owing to their greater understanding of, and longer exposure to, local Polynesian culture, Marist priests had built up a privileged relationship with the three kings which gave them more authority than the succession of French Residents who served short-term postings to Mata Utu.[lxiii] This relationship was not overtly threatened by the new statute. Both religious and royal authority were recognised by Paris in the territorial statute of 1961. The integrity of traditional society was assured by articles 3 and 5, which guaranteed the respect of local customs and religion, as was the case elsewhere in the Fifth Republic. In the same manner as in New Caledonia, where Melanesian law was recognised, the exercise of Wallisian custom law was permitted provided it was not in violation of the French civil code, which locals were given the option of living under should they so choose. The Church received informal recognition of its prerogatives in the 1960s and 1970s through the non-application of French divorce and abortion laws.[lxiv] Under article 10 the three kings sat ex officio on the Territorial Council, alongside the Superior Administrator and three local political appointees. These three appointees, who did not necessarily have to be Territorial Councillors, were chosen from the local population by the Superior Administrator with the approval of the Territorial Assembly.
The statute of 1961 nevertheless accorded administrative primacy to the State.[lxv] Under article 9, the Superior Administrator became the head of the territory, and governed Futuna via his delegate there. Article 7 indicated that the State held authority over territorial defence, law and order, external communications, education, the treasury, customs, state administration, finances and public health. The statute also tacitly offered potential for the erosion of church and custom through the democratisation of the territory. The establishment under article 11 of a Territorial Assembly with 20 members permitted the election of commoners to positions of local responsibility, and assured a fixed level of representation for Futuna by attributing its inhabitants seven seats. The full potential of democratisation under the statute was realised only from the 1980s. In the 1960s and 1970s, conservatives with strong links to the monarchs and the Church dominated the Territorial Assembly and the parliamentary representation of Wallis and Futuna. Local Gaullists, the majority of whom were Wallisians rather than Futunans, held or shared majority control of the Territorial Assembly from 1964 to 1992. A Wallisian, Benjamin Brial, the RPR Deputy for Wallis and Futuna, exemplified the continuity of conservative leadership for most of this period. In close association with custom authority,[lxvi] he held the post of Deputy for Wallis and Futuna from 1967 to 1988. In this respect the situation differed from New Caledonian politics in the 1950s and 1960s. There the majority of indigenous voters, with the support of various Melanesian chiefs, followed the reformist UC.
The role of civil administration, whether state or territorial, slowly grew from the early 1960s, but did so in consultation with traditional powerholders. The limits of state power when it ignored local sentiment became apparent after an incident in November 1974. Jean de Agostini, then the Superior Administrator, was forcibly expelled from the territory at the hands of an angry crowd.[lxvii] The source of the crowd's anger was a rise in local prices which they considered excessive. The half-a-dozen gendarmes present in the territory were unable to intervene effectively.
This embarrassing incident was not one which state representatives in Mata Utu wished to see repeated. When in October 1986, some of the advisers to the Wallisian king started campaigning for the eviction of Georges Jaymes, then Secretary-General to Wallis and Futuna, the reaction was vigorous. Although civil disorder had amounted to no more than some anonymous threatening telephone calls to Jaymes and a brick tossed through the window of an administrative office,[lxviii] on 29 October Jacques Le Hénaff, then Superior Administrator, declared a state of emergency. In doing so, Le Hénaff employed powers outlined under article 8 of the 1961 statute.[lxix] The five gendarmes in the territory were reinforced by a platoon of motorised gendarmes flown in from Nouméa. After 26 uneventful hours the state of emergency was lifted. At the source of the incident was not the hand of the FLNKS, as Le Figaro wildly suggested,[lxx] but instead a dispute between the authority of State and custom. Le Hénaff announced that he would not tolerate the interference of custom authority in state affairs.[lxxi] Jaymes's unpopularity was caused by his decision to post eight of his subordinates back to metropolitan France before their contracts had expired. Among the eight were a Subdivision Head and the Head of Rural Economic Services, who were well-liked by local custom leaders.[lxxii] However ineptly, and in the face of custom leaders' assertions that they should have been consulted,[lxxiii] the declaration of emergency permitted the State to safeguard its prerogatives on Wallis.
The risk to state authority of not making an immediate and vigorous response to a local challenge from custom authority was demonstrated in 1993 and in 1994. The starting point for what turned into violent confrontation in 1993 was an earthquake on 12 March, which resulted in the deaths of three people.[lxxiv] Some Futunans saw the natural disaster, the latest in a series which began with cyclone Raja in December 1986, as evidence of the Lord's wrath on an insufficiently devout population. Accordingly the Futunan kings of Sigave and Alo, Tuisigave and Tuiaigaifo, decided in May to appease God. They forbade fishing on Sundays, and urged their subjects to forsake business and leisure activities on that day in preference to prayer. Philippe Legrix, who had been appointed in March 1993 as the Superior Administrator,[lxxv] responded by indicating that the interdiction was a violation of Republican law and infringed civil liberties, in spite of claims by the two monarchs that they were acting within the bounds of the territorial statute. In June, Legrix suspended state funding to the two kings, and issued an ultimatum: unless the interdiction was lifted by 30 September, further state sanctions would be imposed. The deadline passed without any retraction from the two kings. On 3 October, a power cut on Futuna was interpreted as Legrix's reprisal. Several locals beat up Jean Mauro, his representative on the island. The administrative office on Futuna and official cars were vandalised. The following day, 10 gendarmes arrived from Nouméa to make inquiries. Two men were arrested. The two kings lifted their interdiction on Sunday fishing the same day.[lxxvi] The monarchs were unprepared to take their royal challenge to Republican authority any further and were perhaps unnerved by the extent to which the squabble had escalated into violence.
In 1994, protest came from a new quarter of Wallisian society. Trade unions had become steadily more active in the Territory since the foundation of a branch of the Leftist metropolitan French syndicate Force Ouvrière in 1987.[lxxvii] It was Force Ouvrière which served as catalyst for the first major expression of worker unrest in the islands. By early 1994 the union was campaigning for the application of metropolitan French labour laws to Wallis and Futuna, the lowering of land and sea fares and the increase of the local minimum wages to 100,000F CFP. The syndicate managed to negotiate a draft agreement with the DOM-TOM Minister Dominique Perben and representatives of the Territorial Government, during his visit to Mata Utu in February 1994.[lxxviii] Further negotiations regarding the agreements application were later abandoned by the Balladur Government, leading to simmering union discontent. On 31 March 1994, Force Ouvrière organised a picket outside the Territorial Assembly, calling for statute reform, improved labour regulations, and social welfare measures for locals.[lxxix] By 14 June, dissatisfaction had developed into the declaration of a general strike of private and public sector workers in Wallis and Futuna,[lxxx] a first in the Territory's history. As in November 1974 however, much of the discontent was motivated by consumer discontent over the price of imported consumer goods and foodstuffs, in addition to that of public utilities such as electricity and water. In response to this action, a platoon of 28 gendarmes was flown in from New Caledonia to keep the peace in Mata Utu. Their presence did not serve to calm tempers. On 15 June, hours after a union demonstration outside the Territorial Assembly, an arsonist set fire to the building, resulting in serious damage to administrative offices.[lxxxi] The High Commission in Nouméa, as the State administrative body responsible for the Territory, claimed that the action was the work of a fringe group associated with the trade unionists, a likely supposition, given the circumstances. As in past years, faced with the presence of greater numbers of gendarmes than normal, local protesters backed down. In this instance, the protests were not necessarily ineffectual. Some greater interest was shown in following months for the situation of the islands. On 27 February 1995 a decree was published in the French Journal Officiel fixing new fines for infringements of labour regulations in the Territory.[lxxxii] And in April 1995, Mikaele Tauhavili, the Wallisian Territorial Assembly President, signed a contract in Paris with the French Government for 2,800MF CFP to be spent on territorial development from 1995 till the year 2000. Projects envisaged included renovation of local schools, the construction of a new technical college on Wallis, major roadworks, low cost housing, the rebuilding of the wharf on Futuna, financial assistance to the unemployed, and two new medical posts.[lxxxiii] The expulsion of de Agostini in 1974 has constituted the greatest challenge in Wallis and Futuna to the authority of the Fifth Republic to date. Compared to the New Caledonian troubles in the 1980s this incident, the state of emergency in October 1986, and the unrest in 1993 and 1994, were minor confrontations. While union protest in 1994 presaged infrastructural reform of the sort favoured by French Governments since the 1970s (see below), activism by royal authorities in the 1980s was marginal enough for the representatives of Paris not to bother reacting to it. For example, in November 1983, the two Futunan kings demanded that Futuna receive TOM status.[lxxxiv] There was no future in this unrealistic proposal, which entailed an expression of feelings of Futunan neglect as well as of royal desires for higher status. Paris was as disinclined to follow this path as it was to adopt a Wallisian royal idea that each of the three kingdoms in the territory should receive their own High Commissioner.[lxxxv] Even more flattering to local monarchs than the Futunan proposal, this vision was never contemplated seriously by state representatives. None of the kingdoms were important enough to justify the expense this unwarranted expansion of state bureaucracy would have involved. These local pretensions were wildly at variance with the regard in which Wallis and Futuna was held by its metropolitan French administrators.
Developmental Continuity: from Dijoud to Pons
In comparing the policies for Wallis and Futuna of the various French Governments since 1981, a degree of continuity greater than that of policy concerning New Caledonia is perceptible. Successive administrations implemented various development schemes in Wallis and Futuna without great controversy, undistracted by ideological differences of the sort evoked in Paris by ethnic problems and the question of self-determination in New Caledonia. As a result of prevailing local conservatism and the islands' economic dependence on France, the option of independence has not been a serious issue of debate in Wallis and Futuna. As Brial indicated to the National Assembly in July 1986
[...] the Territory of Wallis and Futuna [...] has never ceased to demonstrate its attachment and its faithfulness to the Fifth Republic in order to permit the improvement of its economy, its culture, its cottage industries, and to ensure the future of its youth. [...].[lxxxvi]
The basic goals of the Eighth Plan, economic diversification, the improvement of living standards through modernised public facilities, and the promotion of economic growth via the reduction of territorial isolation, were not the source of protracted and vociferous debate as they were in the case of New Caledonia. Whether the Ministers overseeing the development of Wallis and Futuna in the 1980s were Giscardian, Socialist or Gaullist, they worked toward policy goals in a manner that did not entail the rushed legislation of a disruptive succession of revisionist statutes, as occurred in New Caledonia.
Wallis and Futuna's developmental orientation had already been established by Dijoud by the time of the appointment of the Mauroy Government in 1981. Parallel to the New Caledonian Dijoud Plan, another Dijoud Plan had been implemented in Wallis and Futuna. Wallis and Futuna's version was adopted by the Territorial Assembly on 24 July 1979,[lxxxvii] five months after the adoption of its New Caledonian equivalent. The Plan was formulated after two decades without detailed territorial developmental planning under the Fifth Republic. Until the late 1970s the solution adopted in Paris to the pressure the islands' rapidly growing population was placing on local resources was to encourage emigration to New Caledonia and, to a lesser extent, to the New Hebrides. As a consequence of the economic downturn in New Caledonia from 1974, and the uncertain future that approaching independence represented for immigrants in the New Hebrides, work opportunities for emigrating Wallisians declined. To counterbalance these declining opportunities, the Dijoud Plan concentrated on promoting local economic self-sufficiency; this proved to be an unrealistic option.[lxxxviii] The Plan covered a period of 20 years, of which detailed development projects were projected for the first ten years. The implementation of the Dijoud Plan was intended to enable Wallis and Futuna to become self-sufficient in food by the turn of the century. Exports would increase as a result of a state-financed diversification of crop production (copra, coffee and pepper). Fishing beyond artisanal level would be set up by providing state-subsidised boats capable of deep sea operations.[lxxxix] Increased funding was similarly proposed for the modernisation of communications and public services, the encouragement of arts and crafts for commercial sale, and for sporting and cultural activities in general.[xc] As with the Eighth Plan, Wallis and Futuna's Dijoud Plan neglected to consider the artificial nature of a projected territorial self-sufficiency dependent on state subsidies, technology and technicians emanating from Paris. The Dijoud Plan overestimated territorial productive capacity, as well as underestimating the resistance of local Polynesians to technological innovation, and the extreme difficulties territorial isolation posed in the creation of export markets for local produce. Regardless of these shortcomings, subsequent government development policy for the islands has continued to pursue the encouragement of territorial self-sufficiency,[xci] even though the illusory nature of these optimistic prescriptions was to become increasingly apparent in the years that followed.
The first ministerial level visit by a Socialist to Wallis and Futuna in the 1980s was that paid by Emmanuelli on 12 August 1981. Showing more reserve than during his first New Caledonian tour the week before his arrival at Mata Utu, Emmanuelli did not publicly express shock at social inequalities in Wallis and Futuna. Unlike the radical political change he declared desirable for New Caledonia, a gentler prescription was to be applied to Wallis and Futuna. "Government efforts will be tend to promote the evolution of society without creating any trauma", Emmanuelli indicated.[xcii]
Rather than a wave of social change of the sort implemented in New Caledonia, Emmanuelli limited government reform efforts in Wallis and Futuna to the improvement of territorial infrastructure (roads, port facilities, the health system, educational facilities) and to the diversification of the territorial economy.[xciii] The notable initiative made in the TOM during Emmanuelli's term as Secretary of State to the DOM-TOM was the establishment of an economic and social development fund in 1982.[xciv] Cautious reform by Emmanuelli was a measured response to Wallisian society's aversion to Socialist reformers, or indeed to anything to do with the Left. The improvement of territorial public works, continued under Lemoine, was an unspectacular policy, quite compatible with the Dijoud Plan, which was offered in order not to offend the conservative values of local leaders.
Before 1985 it is difficult to discern any specifically Socialist ideological influence in the administration of Wallis and Futuna. For most of this period, Socialist Ministers devoted their attention to more immediate and demanding subjects than France's most distant TOM. The microscopic nature of problems in Wallis and Futuna compared with issues confronting France at national level precluded the expenditure of any great effort on what was considered a minor portfolio. The major achievement of the Socialists in government between 1981 and 1986 was the signature of a state-territorial planning contract on 27 March 1985, which offered confirmation of the staid nature of Socialist Government reform in Wallis and Futuna. This contract prioritised development work to be undertaken by state and territorial representatives by 1988. Three goals set for agricultural development included soil protection and improvement, the expansion of irrigation, and increased afforestation. Undertakings for the improvement of the exploitation of fisheries included the construction of a boat-building workshop on Futuna and the establishment of a training scheme for fishermen. Local artisans, whose wares consisted of carvings, tapa cloths and trinkets, were to take a step towards commercialisation by sending their wares to Nouméa, to be marketed there by the New Caledonian Trades Council. Futuna was to receive a medical dispensary, electrification and further roading, while Wallis was to receive a maternity hospital, and improved port facilities. Territorial secondary and technical teaching were to be expanded. Telecommunications facilities were programmed for upgrading.[xcv]
By metropolitan French standards these were all extremely modest and easily achievable projects yet they represented important undertakings for the inhabitants of Wallis and Futuna. For instance, the lack of adequate roading and electrification on Futuna were serious barriers to the improvement of local living standards. When electrification was completed on Futuna in 1987, 16 years after its installation on Wallis, the island literally came out of the dark ages.[xcvi] Futunan electrification might appear belated from a metropolitan French point of view. In general modern amenities have been late in arriving at Wallis and Futuna, as they have in rural New Caledonia and in the outer islands of French Polynesia. Local state radio broadcasting began in 1979, while state television broadcasting began in Wallis in 1986 and in Futuna in 1991.[xcvii] The absence of these amenities was not surprising given the numbers living in the territory. Nevertheless, Wallis and Futuna lacked some amenities that other South Pacific islands with smaller populations have enjoyed for years. In 1993, no local press existed, although at least one Wallisian language newspaper published in Nouméa was in circulation, along with New Caledonian and metropolitan French newspapers and magazines. Niue, with a population of 2,500 in 1992, and Nauru with 9,300 inhabitants, are just two examples of micro-states with their own modest local newspapers.
In spite of the uncontroversial nature of their administration of Wallis and Futuna from 1981 to 1986, Socialist Governments in this period managed to aggravate Wallisian leaders. The source of rising Wallisian distrust of the Socialists during this period was the question of New Caledonian independence. In a reaction opposite to that of Kanaks, references to the possibility of New Caledonian self-determination by government representatives in 1984 and 1985 were contemplated nervously by Wallisian leaders. Limited numbers of Wallisian emigrants resident in Vanuatu had already returned to Wallis and Futuna since 1980, due to declining employment opportunities there for immigrant workers.[xcviii] Wallisian authorities feared no less than the collapse of the economy of Wallis and Futuna and the breakdown of its social systems from overpopulation should the more than 12,000 Wallisians resident in New Caledonia be forced to leave by triumphant Kanak nationalism.[xcix]
Although this was the worst possible scenario, Wallisian leaders had cause to be nervous about the concept of Kanak independence. Kanak enmity towards Wallisian immigrants was well known. Kanaks and Wallisians were divided by their different ethnic origins, the former Melanesian and the latter Polynesian, and by their different religious preferences, respectively Protestant and Catholic. They were divided by politics too. Wallisians in New Caledonia preferred French loyalism to Kanak nationalism, fearing arbitrary eviction under a Republic of Kanaky. Wallisians were regarded by Kanaks as foreign interlopers brought into New Caledonia at the behest of the French. Wallisians were held partly to blame for depriving Kanaks of scarce jobs, and were resented for their tendency to support the RPCR.[c] An incident on a European-owned farm near Ponérihouen in May 1985 offered an example of growing tensions between Kanaks and Wallisians. The FLNKS demanded that eight Wallisian farmhands, along with three Europeans and two Melanesians unsympathetic to Kanaks, be replaced by local unemployed Kanaks. Fearful of arson or other retribution, the landowner did as the FLNKS demanded and dismissed these employees.[ci] The use of unemployed Wallisians in the RPCR security force in 1985 aggravated tensions between Kanaks and Wallisians.[cii] In April 1985 a detachment of 35 Wallisians from this force, along with Henri Morini, their French Algerian leader, were held captive for 48 hours by Kanak activists on Maré.[ciii] These were not isolated incidents. Kanaks and Wallisian RPCR supporters confronted each other at various demonstrations during 1985, and several Wallisians were threatened and abducted by Kanak activists.[civ]
The response of Wallisian politicians and custom authorities was to act in the defence of their compatriots' interests. Wallisian leaders, notably Brial and Papilio, opposed Socialist reforms for New Caledonia in 1985, and backed the counterproposals of the RPCR.[cv] Wallisian custom chiefs affirmed their support for retaining New Caledonian adherence to the French Republic, stressed the right of Wallisians to live and work in New Caledonia without harassment, opposed repatriation to Wallis and Futuna, and backed the RPCR in its opposition to Socialist and FLNKS policies.[cvi] In June 1985 Falakiko Gata, the President of the Territorial Assembly of Wallis and Futuna, pointed out to Mitterrand the disastrous effects that a massive repatriation of Wallisians living in New Caledonia would have should a Republic of Kanaky be established. He asked for additional funding to prepare for this eventuality. Mitterrand's response indicated that he thought this scenario was less imminent than Gata presumed.[cvii]
In the campaign for the legislative elections of March 1986 opposition to New Caledonian independence was an important theme for Wallisians, whether inhabiting their home islands or New Caledonia. Lafleur visited Wallis and Futuna early in March 1986 to bolster Brial's campaign for re-election. Lafleur presented himself as the protector of Wallisian interests in New Caledonia, spoke of the dangers of Kanak independence for Wallisians, and stressed RPR and RPCR opposition to the break-up of the Republic.[cviii] Brial was re-elected on 23 March with 44.31% of votes cast, a reaffirmation of Gaullist continuity in the territory. (Table 24) However the influence of the RPR should not be overestimated. Brial had gained 51.36% of votes cast in 1981. The other Wallisian candidates were likewise opposed to Kanak independence. Nevertheless Wallisian leaders regarded the appointment of the Chirac Government in 1986 with relief. Not only were Wallisian interests in New Caledonia less threatened with a Government in power which was openly hostile to Kanak independence, but the expectation existed among local RPR supporters that the Chirac Government would be more attentive to development issues in Wallis and Futuna.
As was the case in New Caledonia, in Wallis and Futuna Pons enjoyed better relations with local conservatives than had Lemoine and Emmanuelli. But as was also the case with New Caledonia, between 1986 and 1988 the Chirac Government did not lessen economic dependence and social inequality in Wallis and Futuna. The completion of the state-territorial development contract in 1988 reflected well on the Chirac Government, even though it had commenced under Fabius. On 31 August 1986 the announcement by Chirac in Mata Utu of the establishment of an emergency plan for the socio-economic improvement of the territory was warmly received.[cix] A positive reception was offered although there was little that was original in the plan. Comments made by Chirac in Mata Utu on the need to reduce territorial isolation through the modernisation of external communications, the need to upgrade territorial infrastructure and to lessen economic dependence rehashed well-worn themes dating back at least to Dijoud. Included in the 29.51MFF worth of projects foreseen under the plan were some which had already been in the 1985 development contract, namely the improvement of education, airport and hospital facilities and Futunan electrification.[cx]
An extraordinary aid intervention was undertaken by the Chirac Government after cyclone Raja hit Futuna on 26 and 27 December 1986. The cyclone resulted in one death, and destroyed crops and most of the buildings on the island.[cxi] By October 1987, 45.74MFF had been allotted by Paris to island reconstruction.[cxii] This effort permitted Futuna's recovery from a disastrous blow to its economy and infrastructure. The funding for this cyclone relief was generous, being around 50% greater than the amount offered under the existing emergency plan for socio-economic growth.
Although the local majority preferred cohabitation to the uncertainties of Socialist administration, they still voiced support for reform. During the twenty-fifth anniversary celebrations of the 1961 statute, held in July 1986, a spokesman for the Territorial Assembly called for a revision of the statute which would give the local population greater autonomy. Territorial leaders wanted both the security of Republican ties, and greater administrative control over local affairs. In spite of majority calls for statute reform, the Chirac Government resisted change.[cxiii] No great administrative renovation for Wallis and Futuna was either promised or undertaken by the Chirac Government. Pons announced during a visit to the territory in December 1986 that he was unwilling to overturn the existing statute, and informed local leaders that they should leave the Government to manage state affairs.[cxiv] In the aftermath of the declaration of emergency in October, Pons wished to avoid giving the appearance of yielding to local pressure.
The Impetus for Change
If impetus for statute change and a greater local say over Wallis and Futuna's administration was successfully resisted by RPR leaders in government in Paris, RPR Territorial Councillors found themselves less able to resist popular demands for political change. From 1981 Wallisian Gaullists, led by Brial, experienced steps in an ongoing electoral decline caused by local opposition in which Futunans played a prominent part. In the territorial elections held on 21 March 1982, (Table 25) RPR Councillors won 12 seats, ahead of the UDF candidates and independents who won the remainder.[cxv] A bout of political manœuvring in November 1983 displayed the increased fluidity of local party distinctions a UDF Councillor defected to the RPR group, followed by the counterdefection of three RPR Councillors to the UDF group.[cxvi] Among the RPR defectors was Falakiko Gata, who was elected the new Territorial Assembly President. In April 1985 Gata, a Futunan discontented with the preponderance of Wallisian Gaullists, set up UPL, which solicited largely Futunan support. The territorial elections in Wallis and Futuna on 15 March 1987 (Table 25) resulted in a major reversal for the Wallisian Gaullists' long-standing dominance in local political life, perhaps caused by public disappointment at their inability to effect statute reform. Only seven of the 20 seats in the Territorial Assembly went to Gaullists.[cxvii] UPL gained six seats in March 1987.[cxviii] The RPR stayed out of opposition in March 1987 by forming a pragmatic coalition administration with the UPL, and backed the election of Falakiko Gata as President. Basile Tui, the local head of the UDF, was defeated in the election. His party's seven Councillors formed the Opposition.
Local Gaullist fortunes seemed to have recovered during the French elections from April to June 1988. If not at territorial level, then at least in national elections the RPR was still a redoubtable force. In the presidential elections, Chirac received 52.21% of the Wallisian vote in the first round, and 73.19% in the second round. (Table 27) The UDF was sidelined. The liberal candidate, Raymond Barre, received 39.27% of votes there in the first round. In the results of that round, the lack of a substantial PS following was once again evident. Mitterrand, arguably better known to Wallisians than he had been in 1981 thanks to his seven years in office, obtained but 7.21% of the local vote. His support jumped in the second round, when he received 26.42% of votes, but as in 1981 this increase was probably the result of protest votes lodged by Wallisians who did not want to vote for an RPR candidate. Overall, as was the case in 1981, Wallis and Futuna's electors polled against the national trend, backing the loser in the presidential race.
The re-election of Brial in the June legislative elections (Table 28) seemed to be indicative of the continued strength of the local RPR vote in national elections. Brial was re-elected on 12 June with 52.0% of the vote in the second round. Kamilo Gata, a 30 year-old university-educated Futunan, and the brother of Falakiko Gata, was the opposition candidate in the second round. With the support of UDF voters and other opponents of Brial, Gata obtained 47.66% of the vote. As in 1981, a PS candidate was presented, Joseph Maisuèche, although his score was marginal.[cxix] He obtained 3.93% of votes cast (246 votes) in the first round, which was inadequate to warrant participation in the second ballot. Brial, and the reputation of his party, experienced a major débâcle following the lodging by Kamilo Gata of an appeal on the grounds of electoral irregularities. Gata's allegation that Brial's supporters had rigged the vote was upheld by the Constitutional Council. In a decision promulgated on 23 November 1988, the body found that the poll had been tampered with. By lodging multiple votes under assumed names, Brial's followers had taken advantage of the fact that around 30% of voters on local electoral rolls no longer resided in the territory.[cxx]
In the rerun of the election which was held on 15 January 1989, Kamilo Gata defeated Brial, not only gaining 57.44% of valid votes, but doing so on a presidential majority platform.[cxxi] Since June 1988, Gata had boldly declared his allegiance to the MRG, a minor French party electorally allied with the Socialist majority. This victory for Kamilo Gata was a sign of local disenchantment with Brial's electoral methods, as well as being indicative of a broader RPR electoral decline. The extent of local disenchantment with the RPR has been confirmed in more recent national polls. In the territorial vote for the European parliamentary elections on 18 June 1989, 54.86% of votes went to the PS, while the national UDF/RPR coalition obtained 41.14%.[cxxii] The recent electoral success of Kamilo Gata contributed to this result, as did the difficulty of convincing rival Wallisian RPR and UDF supporters to vote for a joint ticket. Confirmation that the election of Kamilo Gata had not been a short-lived fluke came in the legislative elections of March 1993. (Table 29) In their second round on 28 March, standing again as an MRG candidate, Gata defeated Clovis Logologofolau, the RPR candidate. He did so by a comfortable margin, gaining 52.18% of votes cast. Logologofolau obtained 47.38% of votes cast, a conservative defeat in a national ballot where the RPR/UDF coalition swept the polls. (Table 19)
Local Gaullists experienced similar setbacks in the territorial elections held on 22 March 1992. (Table 25) Although the RPR gained seats in comparison with the 1987 elections, it lost its place in the governing majority. It also lost the territorial presidency, which had been assumed by Logologofolau since 1987. Soane Uhila, the new Territorial Assembly President, was elected on 25 March 1992 with the backing of independent and presidential majority representatives.[cxxiii] Uhila was an independent candidate, employed as territorial secretary by the trade union Force Ouvrière.[cxxiv] By 1 September 1992, the date of the opening of the first sessions of the new administration, Uhila was leading a coalition of six presidential majority Councillors, and five independents, with the remaining nine RPR Councillors forming the Opposition.[cxxv] The new administration constituted a novelty in including Territorial Councillors sympathetic to Mitterrand. In addition, not only was this the first time that local RPR representatives had been in opposition since 1964, it was also the first time the Territorial Assembly had included women, two having been elected in March.[cxxvi] The significance of this latter event should not be underestimated traditional values in Wallis and Futuna have largely excluded women from leadership roles. Wallis and Futuna's territorial leadership in the early 1990s had become considerably less conservative than it was a decade before.
Political change has likewise taken place in the Wallisian community in New Caledonia since the late 1980s. An expression of the political disillusionment of a minority of local Wallisians with the RPCR, the UO was formed in May 1989 to participate in the New Caledonian provincial elections. (Table 17) This was not the first time that Wallisians had acted on their discontent with the RPCR,[cxxvii] but it was the first time that Wallisians were elected at territorial level on an independent party platform. The UO denounced the RPCR for failing to act in the best interests of Wallisian immigrants, and declared that only through independent lobbying would they gain better political representation and the capacity to improve their socio-economic status.[cxxviii] This independent stance had certain limitations in that whether Wallisians stood independently or with the RPCR, their representation in the Territorial Assembly had always been minor, usually consisting of two Councillors.
Wallisian leadership on home ground and in New Caledonia faced the second period of Socialist Government from April 1988 to March 1993 with a less conservative outlook than in 1981. Kamilo Gata typified a younger generation, more travelled, better educated and open to change, which was exerting greater influence on local political life.[cxxix] Since 1989, Wallisians at home and in New Caledonia have lobbied Paris for greater recognition of their interests. In January 1990 the UO sent a delegate to Paris to voice resentment at the lack of specific recognition by the Matignon Accords of the Wallisian community (New Caledonia's third largest ethnic group).[cxxx] UO lobbying did not produce any concrete commitment from the Rocard Government, certainly not to the extent of expanding the Accords to include the Wallisian community as a separate partner, as the party optimistically proposed in January 1990. However Wallis and Futuna's leaders made some progress in lobbying Paris for a revision of policy concerning their territory.
The first major expression of interest by the Rocard Government in Wallis and Futuna came with Rocard's arrival in Mata Utu on 24 August 1989. Rocard's visit to the territory was the first paid there by a Socialist Prime Minister. His speech at Mata Utu that day was cautious in tone, avoiding matters which might have offended the Wallisian royalty present. Rocard characterised the governmental position of respect for local customs and institutions as well as support for reform as entailing "progress within custom".[cxxxi] However, like Pons, Rocard was unenthusiastic about revising the 1961 statute:
I do indeed believe that territorial institutions, which date from 1961, need to be modernised. But is this a priority? Institutional debate is a divisive thing. I, personally, consider training, jobs, and economic and social progress to be the priority.[cxxxii]
In keeping with the cooperation theme of his Pacific tour, of which Mata Utu was only one leg, Rocard stressed the importance of avoiding divisive debate between the State and local political and custom representatives over redrafting the statute. He preferred instead to concentrate on ongoing development work. While advancing this message, he outlined the need to diminish Wallis and Futuna's isolation and its economic dependence:
You must depend less on metropolitan France, less on New Caledonia, and you must do more to develop the potential of your natural resources. [...] The Government's wish is to turn over a new leaf with regard to your territory's isolation and enclavement.[cxxxiii]
Rocard's words could equally have been spoken by Pons or Chirac during their visits to Wallis and Futuna, or by visiting Ministers all the way back to Dijoud ten years before. His declaration followed in the well-established orientations of territorial development decided on in Paris. Through the commercial exploitation of local resources and the reduction of territorial isolation, Wallis and Futuna would become more self-reliant and the standard of living of its inhabitants would be improved. The efforts undertaken during his period as Prime Minister were steady but unremarkable, involving the improvement of territorial telecommunications, the extension of the local television network to Futuna, and the continuation of agriculture and fisheries projects.
Although Rocard expressed his reservations over immediate statute reform, vague Wallisian demands for such reform did not dissipate, and his Government later undertook to discuss the matter. On 1 August 1990 Le Pensec, then Minister to the DOM-TOM, announced that the Government would hold round table discussions in Paris with territorial leaders on "social progress, economic development and the modernisation of institutions".[cxxxiv] Logologofolau and Kamilo Gata led a territorial delegation to Paris for meetings in June 1991. They presented a 27-page draft of a "guiding plan for economic, social and cultural development" to Le Pensec. The proposal was presented as having, and had, the support of all of Wallis and Futuna's political parties.[cxxxv]
The proposal, according to Le Monde, consisted of a list of the various improvements that the Territorial Assembly wished to see implemented the construction of new roads and the sealing of old ones, the extension of running water to a greater number of houses, the installation of more telephone lines, the lengthening of local airport runways, the expansion of port facilities, job creation, further assistance to agriculture and fisheries, and the development of tourism.[cxxxvi] Local politicians shared the developmental orientations advocated by Rocard and his predecessors, but were not satisfied with the pace of change. They wanted more material improvements, introduced more rapidly than those of preceding years.
The accusation of territorial neglect by a distant, impersonal bureaucracy that Kamilo Gata had made in the National Assembly in November 1989 was reiterated by Logologofolau and his First Secretary, Mikaele Tauhavili:
We have the impression that we are the forgotten members of the Republic. Why don't we have the same advantages as the other Overseas Territories? We notice that we are less well treated than New Caledonia and [French] Polynesia [...] We are not given the public means to bring about our development in spite of the multitude of official reports on our situation, and we are prevented from creating private sector development [...] We have the impression that we are being sanctioned because of our faithfulness to France. Must we pose the question of our adherence to France to be held in higher regard?[cxxxvii]
The pair no doubt had the Kanak nationalist movement in mind when they posed this question. Their assertion that Paris responded more readily to disruption than to representations through normal administrative channels was an attempt to influence official opinion there and was overstated. The veiled threat that Wallis and Futuna might push for independence if disillusionment with Paris persisted was absurd. There had never been any great electoral support for independence in Wallis and Futuna. Territorial dependence on French munificence for the maintenance of local social services, and public works, as well as agricultural and fisheries projects, left its inhabitants ill-disposed toward claiming sovereignty. It was ridiculous to state that territorial representatives were being sanctioned or were forgotten on the occasion of an official visit to Paris to discuss reform. The claim that Wallis and Futuna was less well-treated than the other two Pacific TOM was a questionable one. While Mata Utu might not enjoy all the modern conveniences of Papeete or Nouméa, that circumstance was more a reflection of the different population levels of the three centres than evidence of neglect. On the other hand, parts of the interior of the Grande Terre and the outer islands of French Polynesia were at the same level of development as Wallis and Futuna, or were even less well off. The assertion that the territory had not been given the means to develop itself was likewise open to scrutiny. Might not the marginal possibilities for the expansion of entrepreneurialism be the consequence of the extremely limited resources of the territory, and of local social conservatism, rather than the fault of Paris?
The infrastructural improvements advocated by the territorial delegation could not be considered particularly bold or innovative. They were in line with government public works efforts that continued into the 1990s. Le Pensec was slower to react to the idea of statute reform. In July 1992, he visited Wallis and Futuna and announced that he was open to further representations about the future status of the territory, which might involve an evolution to greater administrative autonomy.[cxxxviii] In March 1993 it was announced by the outgoing Socialist administration that Wallis and Futuna was to be granted internal autonomy, although precise details on the timetable for this step were not forthcoming.[cxxxix] Wallis and Futuna, unlike the other two Pacific TOM, had been left untouched by the decentralisation policies advocated by French Governments from 1981.[cxl] Whether similar renovations will be implemented in Wallis and Futuna and what their effects might be is one of the salient political questions facing local political leaders in the 1990s.
No major renovation in government thinking concerning Wallis and Futuna's administration has taken place since the Dijoud Plan in 1979. Socialist and Gaullist development plans since Dijoud have largely followed its precedent. Wallisian demands for a revision of the 1961 statute failed to evoke a positive response from Paris until 1991. Although since 1988 Wallisian parliamentarians have been more vocal in denouncing asserted Parisian inflexibility and slowness in implementing change in Wallis and Futuna,[cxli] Paris has not shown any haste over statute discussions. With the appointment of the Balladur Government in March 1993, the tentative consideration by Le Pensec of statute reform lost impetus. As Dominique Perben, Balladur's Minister to the DOM-TOM, indicated, he considered socio-economic improvements rather than statute reform to be his priority.[cxlii] Since the appointment of the Juppé Government in 1995 there has been no indication that the reluctance of metropolitan French RPR leaders to respond to Wallisian demands in this field has diminished.
The 1990s: Persistent Dependence
As in New Caledonia under the Matignon Accords, the State's intention of decreasing Wallis and Futuna's dependence through funding for various development schemes has paradoxically led to the consolidation of territorial reliance on metropolitan French assistance. Since 1981, administrative services in Wallis and Futuna have expanded in response to the increasing demands placed on them by the implementation of various aid plans. From 1986 to 1991, the number of people employed in the public sector grew from 761 to 1,026, although as a proportion of the growing numbers of those in paid employment these figures represent a marked drop from 82.27% to 62.26%.[cxliii] This growth in the public sector, as well as more rapid growth affecting people in the private sector, has tended to aggravate the inequalities already existing between the waged and unwaged working population. Public and private sector employees enjoy a level of purchasing power far beyond that of subsistence farmers, enabling them to buy consumer goods and to experience a standard of living beyond the means of those in the tribal milieu.
Rocard indicated his awareness of this situation during his visit to Mata Utu in August 1989. Reacting to claims made by local civil servants that their salaries should be raised, Rocard rejected this idea as it would lead to an increase in the disparities between the living standards of those in the public sector, the small private sector, and the mass of workers outside the cash economy.[cxliv] Rocard mentioned that job creation was the way to improving the lot of those not in paid employment, but this proposal stumbles on the narrow range of territorial economic activity. The number of inhabitants in paid employment increased in number from 1983 to 1990. In 1983 there were 1,121 people of 5,552 inhabitants aged from 17 and a half to 65 years who worked outside of subsistence agriculture.[cxlv] Thus 20.20% of the working age population was in paid employment. In 1990, out of territorial inhabitants 14 years and over, there were 1,406 people in paid employment of 7,080 people aged from 16 to 65.[cxlvi] This figure represented 19.86% of the working age population in paid employment.
Private sector employment opportunities increased in the 1980s, although such activity in Wallis and Futuna remained marginal by Western standards. In 1987, private sector employment represented 22.56% of the work force in paid employment, a percentage which rose to 37.74% by 1990.[cxlvii] This private sector rise was a reflection of the increased work opportunities offered by public works projects, both as a part of ongoing state development initiatives, and as a result of reconstruction work undertaken after cyclone damage caused in December 1986 and in February 1990.[cxlviii] The IEOM described these employment gains as fragile, because they comprised work on short-term projects stemming from disaster relief and government contracts.[cxlix] There existed no alternative fields in the private sector which might sustain similar growth.
In spite of the increasing number of wage earners in Wallis and Futuna in the late 1980s, Indosuez did not apparently view the territorial economic situation with optimism. In November 1989, the sole local trading bank closed down for want of sufficient custom to justify its continued presence. Westpac Banking Corporation, which bought up Indosuez's South Pacific branches in 1990, did not show any interest in reopening the branch. For two years, local savings had to be held by the territorial treasury while local political leaders lobbied the State to find a replacement. In 1991, the Banque de Wallis et Futuna began trading. This was an operation jointly financed by the territorial administration, the Banque Nationale de Paris, and the Banque Calédonienne d'Investissement.[cl]
Since 1981, government plans to stimulate economic diversification in Wallis and Futuna have not resulted in major advances. Apart from trochus shells, by the early 1990s local exports were insignificant, while heavy dependence on imports persisted. (Table 22) Manufacturing continued to be concentrated on construction and handicrafts in the absence of a viable base for modern light manufacturing.[cli] In 1991, territorial agriculture was still centred on subsistence consumption. State efforts to stimulate production beyond this level had not been very successful. Local farmers, preferring established foods such as taros, yams, cassava and bananas, have resisted attempts to diversify crop production through the introduction of more exotic fruits and vegetables. Traditional land tenure, based on family plots of between 0.25ha and 0.5ha, has prevented commercially viable cash-cropping, and European innovations such as chemical fertilisers and modern farm machinery have been rejected by locals in favour of the continued use of traditional agricultural tools and techniques.[clii] While territorial politicians like Logologofolau have attempted to place blame on Paris for the feebleness of the private sector in Wallis and Futuna, it should be recognised that local unwillingness to abandon traditional forms of agriculture precludes the major expansion of commercial agriculture.
Commercial fishing is similarly limited because of a reluctance to go beyond subsistence levels of production. Territorial fisheries exploitation in the early 1990s remained restricted to lagoons, despite plans to expand it. A state-funded workshop allowed local fishermen to buy cheap boats, of which it had built around 500 by 1991. Although this activity had assisted lagoon fishing, commercial fishing was limited. The prospects of commercial deep sea fishing by locals looked unpromising, as they lacked the large vessels and the trained personnel necessary to bring in profitable catches.[cliii] Foreign trawlers retained their dominance over the exploitation of Wallis and Futuna's EEZ, although their presence at least provided license revenue for the territory.
For want of facilities and international awareness of the territory, tourism has not been an area of major growth since 1981. In December 1991 four hotels on Wallis offered 30 rooms in total. Futuna still had no hotel accommodation. The average occupancy rate that year was estimated at 15%. Around 90% of visitors were businessmen.[cliv] Wallisian political leaders would like to see the number of hotel rooms in the territory expanded to 200,[clv] however this idea is a pipe dream considering the marginal level of local tourist activity. Cultural conservatism may also prevent any major future influx of tourism revenue. A proposal by Club Med to build a resort on Faiva Island, just off the coast of Wallis, would have offered a major boost to local tourism. However the king of Wallis vetoed the offer in 1987, fearing the deleterious moral effects the presence of scantily-clad, hedonistic European tourists would have on his subjects.[clvi] Custom authorities may well block any future proposals for tourist resorts.
Traditional society in Wallis and Futuna is far from having been eroded by French influences to the same extent that Melanesian cultures in New Caledonia have been. European immigration has remained limited, consisting mainly of metropolitan French civil servants who are posted to the territory for fixed periods. In 1990 97.67% of the 13,705 inhabitants in the territory were either Wallisian or Futunan. The remainder amounted to 457 immigrants, of whom just 13 were not French.[clvii] No alienation of land took place in Wallis and Futuna in the nineteenth century because of limited European settlement. The absence of a large, permanent non-indigenous population has allowed the three kingdoms to retain control of local resources. In the eyes of state functionaries and of liberal territorial politicians this royal resistance to change is backward, forming a barrier to the commercialisation of agriculture and fisheries, as well as to the growth of tourism. The three monarchs of the territory might counter with the argument that it was preferable that traditional society retained a level of control over its destiny which Tahitians, and the Melanesians of the Grande Terre of New Caledonia, no longer enjoyed. Social changes brought about by non-indigenous settlement in New Caledonia and French Polynesia since the nineteenth century had exercised a destabilising influence on indigenous identity there. No such problem existed in Wallis and Futuna. Both had retained their cultural identities. The low level of mixing between Wallisians and Futunans should be noted too. In 1990, 69 Wallisians were resident in Futuna, and 105 Futunans in Wallis.[clviii] Although forming a minority in the territory, Futunans have maintained their insular cultural identity.
French culture in Wallis and Futuna continued to make inroads because of the gradual improvement of state educational facilities, although a significant proportion of the territorial population could still not speak French. In 1990, it was estimated that of the territorial population aged ten years and over 76.5% spoke French, 73.7% could read it, and 72.3% could write it.[clix] In New Caledonia in 1989, 97.1% of indigenous Melanesians aged ten years or more could speak French, 92.6% could read it, and 92.9% could write it.[clx] In French Polynesia in 1988, 88.6% of full Polynesians aged ten years or more could speak French, 84.4% could read it and 82.7% could write it.[clxi] In metropolitan France in 1990, it was estimated by the INSEE that of the population aged 18 years and over, 9.1% could neither speak, read, write nor understand French well.[clxii] The educational attainments of the indigenous population aged six years and over in 1990 were likewise low by metropolitan French standards, and in comparison with the other two Pacific TOM. Of Wallisians, 12.0% had not been to school, 65.1% had not progressed beyond primary level, 22.4% had attained secondary level and 0.5% had gained tertiary level education. The respective figures for Futunans were 19.9%, 63.9% 16.0% and 0.3%.[clxiii] The ongoing improvement of educational facilities in the territory will improve educational levels and knowledge of French in years to come, although the lack of local tertiary and vocational training facilities hinders the growth in the number of those receiving higher education. Considering the small population base, the State cannot justify the construction of local educational facilities beyond secondary level.
In spite of the improvement of living standards in Wallis and Futuna throughout the 1980s as a result of state development funding, government programmes have yet to overcome what are viewed from Paris as basic local economic limitations. State organisation of improved communications, public services and development schemes was incapable of surmounting the islands' isolation, small population base, and meagre natural resources. The metropolitan French economic outlook, which equated development with the expansion of the cash economy, and the introduction of capitalist socio-economic values, was ill-adapted to changing this situation. The reluctance of the three kingdoms to abandon their traditional values may have been viewed as backward from a European economic perspective. But as long as the French State continues subsidising the material demands of the local population, and provided that large numbers continue to leave the territory, the existing economic balance should remain viable, however unsatisfying it might be for state planners. The maintenance of a Polynesian subsistence economy alongside an 'unproductive' cash economy dominated by services might be a more rational response to the constraints of the local natural and cultural environment than the state development model.
Notes
[i] In order to protect against unscrupulous operators, no notes, bibliography or other references are provided in this Web publication. Readers wanting a specific reference may contact me at wsmccall@maxnet.co.nz.
© Wayne Stuart McCallum 1996.
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