French South Pacific Policy 1981-1996
by Dr W. S. McCallum © 1996
Introduction
For a long time and true, in a largely tendentious manner, France has been perceived there as a backward-looking State, caring little for specificities and local cultures, desirous of maintaining a post-colonial type of sovereignty over its territories at any price and imposing its nuclear arrogance on the region.
Louis Le Pensec, Minister of the DOM-TOM (1988 to 1993).(1)
France's maintenance of its South Pacific presence into the 1980s was not regarded with enthusiasm by the then newly independent island states in the region. Continued support by the Fifth Republic for its South Pacific territories stood in marked contrast to the policy implemented in the 1970s by its traditional colonial rival, Great Britain. The British decision to withdraw from the bulk of its territories east of Suez involved the granting of independence in the 1970s to all but the most insignificant of its South Pacific dominions, Pitcairn Island. The dénouement of the British withdrawal came in 1980, when the contrasting policies of France and Britain stood out during the troubled decolonisation of the Franco-British Condominium of the New Hebrides. French reluctance to abandon interests in the archipelago caused antagonism, both with the British, and among the emerging indigenous political class.(2) While Great Britain was concerned with reducing its global role in order to concentrate on domestic problems, France wished to retain its interests in this distant group of islands. The willingness of Paris to do so after the declaration of Vanuatu's independence in July 1980, and in the face of hostility from VP Governments, is evidence of a level of interest in the South Pacific that has since diminished in Whitehall.
Certain aspects of the French presence in the South Pacific have been regarded with misgivings by regional governments. New Caledonia's continued status as a TOM in the face of indigenous nationalist demands for decolonisation during the 1980s appeared anachronistic. Most South Pacific governments mobilised from the mid-1980s to support New Caledonian independence, issuing statements to the effect that the territory's decolonisation had been postponed too long. Following British decolonisation of the South Pacific, French withdrawal from New Caledonia was assumed by regional governments to be an historical inevitability. Paris insisted that the question of New Caledonia's administrative status was a domestic policy matter which had to be resolved within the constitutional framework of the Fifth Republic. This stance was looked on with apprehension and contempt by many regional leaders. In the mid-1980s, the representatives of neighbouring countries such as Australia, Vanuatu and the Solomon Islands acted on the assumption that they had every right to comment on New Caledonia's internal politics and to voice support for territorial sovereignty. The territory's political stability or lack thereof impinged, they argued, on considerations of regional security.
South Pacific opposition to nuclear testing in French Polynesia is of less recent origin. The first regional protests began three years before French nuclear tests commenced in French Polynesia in 1966.(3) France's affirmation of the legality of conducting its nuclear tests on French territory was seen by islanders as arrogant, for the territory in question was situated in the Pacific, and the effects of nuclear tests did not necessarily respect international boundaries. French declarations that the tests represented no threat to island inhabitants or to the environment were received with disbelief. The British and American governments had offered similar assurances concerning the safety of their Pacific nuclear testing in the 1950s. Decades later some of these assurances were proven to be empty and the fallout effects of these tests on island communities left behind a fear of things nuclear among islanders long after these two nations had abandoned Pacific nuclear testing in 1962.(4) France's commencement of testing in the Pacific, after Britain and the United States had abandoned it there, was taken as a threatening affront to island populations.
As Le Pensec pointed out, such contentious issues have contributed to the perception among island states that France is living in the past, clinging to policies seen as the products of a European colonialist mentality.
France's defence of its interests in the face of South Pacific critiques has ranged from conciliatory but unbending explanations of government policy through to reactions such as the cutting of ministerial contacts with Australia in January 1987 and the bombing of the Greenpeace vessel Rainbow Warrior in Auckland Harbour in July 1985. These and other French reactions in the 1980s provoked further discord with South Pacific nations, contributing to a climate of distrust of French motives. Even France's more placid activities, such as its development of aid to the South Pacific, have on occasion become the subject of political debate. The reduction of French aid to Vanuatu was used periodically in an attempt to soften criticisms of French policies in Port Vila. France's aid and development loans to places such as the Solomon Islands, Fiji, and the Cook Islands were interpreted, erroneously or not, as attempts to sway island opposition to French nuclear testing, and support for New Caledonian independence. The validity of such claims will be examined in chapter 8.
The image of France's role in the South Pacific tends to become distorted when viewed through the prism of regional political interests that emphasise causes célèbres.(5) To gain a better understanding of French policy, this work will be orientated toward a consideration of French Governments' views of the role of the Fifth Republic in the South Pacific from 1981. Particular emphasis will be placed on state policy goals in the zone, and on the political philosophies and debates associated with this policy formulation. Assessment will be made of the extent to which various aspects of government policy in the South Pacific have been implemented from 1981 to 1993. This orientation does not diminish the importance of the controversial subjects of possible New Caledonian independence and of French nuclear testing. It does however, permit a closer examination of the motivations behind, and of the implementation of, a range of French policies during the period under discussion. South Pacific responses to France's actions in the region have tended to ignore or misunderstand the influence of determining factors in its policy such as the constitutional framework of the Fifth Republic, the political ideologies of governing parties in Paris, those parties' dealings with the territorial leaders of the French Pacific, not to mention the metropolitan French electorate's ignorance of, and indifference to, this distant area.
Immediate mention here is restricted to just two examples of South Pacific misconceptions relating to French policy in the zone. Many South Pacific governments in the 1980s held that New Caledonian independence was impending, while exhibiting little perception of a major reason as to why it should not be the constitutional practice of the Fifth Republic allowed the granting of sovereignty to a French territory only when a majority of voters there had expressed support for self-determination. During the 1980s the nationalist movement in New Caledonia did not command the support of a majority of the local electorate. Socialist Governments in Paris were constrained to realise that the majority of the New Caledonian electorate opposed independence. Socialist leaders were bound to the rules of French constitutional law, however much some among them might have sympathised with Melanesian nationalist aspirations. This political constraint was either ignored or misread by neighbouring countries which supported New Caledonia's decolonisation. Irrespective of formal democratic considerations, the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu and Papua New Guinea backed independence claims in New Caledonia due to a shared belief in Melanesian nationalism. In the 1980s the Australian Labor Government expressed support for steps toward New Caledonian self-determination "according to the wishes of the people of New Caledonia"6 when, paradoxically, the majority of the New Caledonian electorate opposed independence.
Similarly, after the establishment of a French Socialist Government in 1981, regional political leaders misread its attitude toward nuclear deterrence. Some, holding the erroneous assumption that the mainstream French Left shared the widespread anti-nuclear sentiments professed by Labour parties in the South Pacific, assumed in 1981 that the new administration opposed nuclear testing.7 However François Mitterrand, the first Socialist President of the Fifth Republic, was elected in May 1981 on a political platform which included support for the maintenance of France's nuclear deterrent.8 He had in fact advocated some form of French nuclear deterrent as early as 1971.9 The gap between the perceptions of South Pacific political representatives and the realities of the French political scene could at times be quite marked.
Other misconceptions also existed. This work, with its emphasis on the French view of France's regional involvement, aims in part to dispel these misconceptions, while in the process permitting a greater understanding of various idiosyncrasies revealed by French policy makers in the period under examination.
The starting point of 1981 has been chosen for this study because it was the year of the accession to power of the Fifth Republic's first Socialist Government. It will be seen that during President Mitterrand's two terms of office since then, the South Pacific impinged on metropolitan French political life to a greater extent than previously. The decolonisation of the New Hebrides stimulated the realisation in Paris that French interests in the South Pacific were not immune to pressures for change. Before the 1980s, the South Pacific had appeared from Paris to be a zone of political inertia compared with areas such as South-East Asia and Africa, where France had been forced to decolonise in the 1950s and 1960s when faced with the rise of indigenous nationalist movements. The installation of a reformist Socialist Government, combined with the perceived precedent of New Hebridean decolonisation, raised the hopes of Melanesian nationalists in New Caledonia. By the middle of the 1980s, the possibility of New Caledonian independence had been propelled to the forefront of metropolitan French political debate. This was the first time that decolonisation matters had assumed such importance in Paris since the French withdrawal from Algeria in 1962. While the continuation of nuclear testing in French Polynesia was never placed in question by Mitterrand in the 1980s, France's resolve to protect its testing programme from possible foreign disruption, to the extent of sinking the Rainbow Warrior, provoked one of the major domestic political scandals of that decade. The advent of these problems coincided with a growing realisation among French Ministers that the Fifth Republic had hitherto neglected its interests in the Pacific in favour of concentrating on areas of greater French influence in Europe, Africa and the Middle East.
The extent to which French Governments responded to South Pacific issues from 1981 until the end of French testing in the region in January 1996, and the forms that their responses assumed, comprise the overall concern of this work. Analysis is offered of the administration of the three Pacific TOM (New Caledonia, Wallis and Futuna, and French Polynesia), and of external relations with South Pacific nations. Interplay between French domestic policy and external policy in the area is considerable an examination of the former contributes to an understanding of the latter and vice-versa. The responses of neighbouring countries to political developments within France's Pacific territories cannot be assessed adequately without some prior analysis of those developments themselves. Furthermore, as much as Paris might have wished the exclusion of foreign critiques and lobbying over its policies in the TOM, debate over New Caledonia and French Polynesia became international. New Caledonia was the subject of concerted lobbying by the South Pacific Forum in the UN from 1986. Similar lobbying on French nuclear testing dates back to the 1960s.
Part 1 of this book concentrates on France's political relationship with its South Pacific territories from 1981 until 1996. After an introductory chapter on the state of government policy relating to the French Pacific in the months preceding Mitterrand's election, a chapter each is devoted to New Caledonia, Wallis and Futuna, and French Polynesia. These chapters concentrate on the various administrative and development problems that those three territories presented to French Governments.
Part 2 examines France's external relations with South Pacific nations from 1981 to 1996. The opening chapter of part 2 consists of an introduction to French perceptions of the South Pacific and a survey of regional French diplomacy. The following three chapters consider the influence of nuclear and decolonisation issues on France's South Pacific presence, and the increasingly important role French aid and cooperation have played in expanding French regional integration. A thematic approach is used in part 2. A case-by-case study of French associations with all seventeen foreign territories in the South Pacific is not the intention of this work. Nevertheless most of the South Pacific island states, from larger ones such as Fiji to the smallest ones, have their links with France considered to some degree in part 2.
The conclusion presents an assessment of the implementation of French internal and external policy in the South Pacific since 1981. Evaluation is made of the extent to which France achieved its policy goals under Mitterrand's presidency, and the impact of the election of Jacques Chirac on 8 May 1995.
Some mention must be made of the sources drawn on in the preparation of this thesis, of their biases, and of the extent of their reliability. Material consulted includes documents which are predominantly of French and South Pacific origin government statements, statistics, reports and parliamentary papers, academic works, partisan political publications, and journalism. Some of these sources are more reliable than others. For instance, press reports of events discussed within this work sometimes contain factual errors and contradictions, misspelt names, and misleading conclusions. In some instances, press reports are the only references to certain events to which access is to date possible. The contemporary and thus still sensitive nature of many aspects of the topic under discussion has precluded examination of government archives taken for granted by scholars researching the more distant past.
In mentioning the subjective nature of sources, ideological and nationalistic influences should not be ignored. As will be seen, many of the individuals quoted in this work have resorted to dubious claims while under these influences. A not inconsiderable amount of the literature concerning France's South Pacific presence in the 1980s has been detrimentally influenced by chauvinism and ideological dogmatism, accentuated by the mutual incomprehension sometimes evident between France and the English-speaking South Pacific. Caution must be exercised when dealing with such material, although it can be useful for illustrating divergent positions and conflicting interpretations of political questions.
Another limitation of accounts about France and the South Pacific is that in them the controversial has often overshadowed the commonplace. There exists a more abundant literature on the Rainbow Warrior bombing than on French development aid to the South Pacific.10 Similarly, New Caledonia's turbulent politics in the 1980s prompted the publication of more books than have been devoted to the less violent political evolution of French Polynesia.11 Such subject biases to be found in the existing literature on France in the South Pacific during the 1980s can pose a hindrance, channelling attention toward sensational episodes rather than toward the durable and substantial developments of the period. In this study, certain key flashpoints must of necessity be discussed. Adequate analysis of Franco-New Zealand relations in the 1980s could not be made while ignoring the Greenpeace affair. But rather than dwelling on the minutiae of incidents such as the Rainbow Warrior bombing, emphasis here will be on the policy context of these events and on their wider implications. Rather than recapitulating journalistic exposés, this study concentrates on the evolution of French government policy and its implementation in the South Pacific from 1981 to 1996.
Nevertheless, some assessments made in this text may be considered debatable. Judging from the impassioned nature of much preceding argumentation involving aspects of this topic, such a response is to be expected. While this study endeavours to present a balanced view of its subject, some of its conclusions will inevitably prompt disagreement. This work's conclusions are, of course, the author's own.
Notes
1. All translations from French are by the author. 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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