Manuel Valls was appointed as France's new Minister for Overseas on Monday, as part of the new French Prime Minister François Bayrou's cabinet announcement, ten days after his appointment by embattled French President Macron.
62-year-old Valls is a former French Socialist Prime minister from 31 March 2014 to 6 December 2016.
He was also French minister for Home Affairs from May 2012 to March 2014.
He then resigned from the Socialist Party in 2017, to become a strong supporter of Emmanuel Macron in his campaign to win the Presidential elections.
Manuel Valls is France's new Minister for Overseas Photo: AFP
Strong connections with New Caledonian affairs
He is also known to have strong connections with New Caledonian affairs, from earlier in his career, in 1988, when he was a young advisor to then French Prime minister Michel Rocard.
Rocard is considered as the main negotiator between opposing New Caledonian leaders, pro-France Jacques Lafleur and pro-independence Jean-Marie Tjibaou.
Manuel Valls during a visit in New Caledonia as Prime Minister 29 April 2016 Photo: Supplied
This led to the signing of an agreement, the Matignon Accord, which effectively put an end to half a decade of quasi civil war in the French Pacific archipelago.
As Prime minister, Valls was also directly in charge of New Caledonia's affairs, an unwritten custom since the signing of the Matignon Accord.
In 2017, as an MP within the French National Assembly, Valls chaired a parliamentary "information mission" on New Caledonia's political future which led to an extensive report reflecting and analysing the French Pacific entity's political future options.
Critical of Macron's approach
More recently, in the wake of insurrectional riots that broke out in New Caledonia from May 13, 2024, causing 14 dead and extensive damage to the capital Nouméa, Valls was also outspoken on the crisis situation.
In an interview with French national daily Le Parisien in November 2024, he lashed out at President Macron's "stubbornness" in trying to push through earlier this year a Constitutional amendment that would have altered the conditions of eligibility for New Caledonia's local elections, holding him responsible for "ruining 36 years of dialogue, of progress and an approach that owes so much to Michel Rocard".
However he hailed Michel Barnier's fresh attempts to restore political dialogue with New Caledonia's stakeholders.
Barnier, in September, announced the Constitutional amendment plans had now been abandoned.
During his short three-month tenure as prime minister, Barnier also set plans in motion to restore political dialogue, with a tentative plan to reach an inclusive agreement with local political parties (both pro-France and pro-independence) by the end of March 2025.
Such talks, however, have not yet started.
As minister for French Overseas, Valls replaces François-Noël Buffet, who has only been in charge of French Overseas for just over three months, until Prime Minister Michel Barnier fell to a motion of no confidence.
In the same announcement on Monday two political figures have been closely associated with New Caledonia within previous cabinets: Gérald Darmanin as Minister for Home Affairs and Overseas (from July 2022 to September 2024) and Sébastien Lecornu as Minister for Overseas (from July 2020 to May 2022).
In the new cabinet, Darmanin is now Minister of Justice and Lecornu remains minister for Defence.
