New Caledonia's pro-independence split widens, another party quits FLNKS

A rift within New Caledonia's pro-independence movement has further widened after the second component of the "moderates", the UPM (Progressist Union in Melanesia), has officially announced it has now left the once united Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front (FLNKS).

The UPM announcement, at a press conference in Nouméa, comes only five days after the PALIKA (Kanak Liberation Party), another moderate pro-independence group, also officialised it was splitting from the FLNKS.

It was in line with resolutions taken at the party's Congress held at the weekend.

Both groups have invoked similar reasons for the move.

UPM leader Victor Tutugoro told local media on Wednesday his party found it increasingly "difficult to exist today within the (FLNKS) pro-independence movement, part of which has now widely radicalised through outrage and threats".

He said both his party and PALIKA did not recognise themselves anymore in the FLNKS's increasingly "violent operating mode".

Tutugoro recalled that since August 2024, UPM has not taken part in the operation of the "new FLNKS" (including its political bureau) because it did not accept its "forceful ways" under the increasing domination of Union Calédonienne, especially the recruitment of new "nationalist" factions and the appointment of CCAT leader and UC political commissar Christian Téin as its new President,.

Téin was arrested in June 2024 for alleged criminal-related charges before and during the May 2024 riots and then flown to mainland France.

After one year in jail in Mulhouse (North-east of France), his pre-trial conditions were released and in October 2025, he was eventually authorised to return to New Caledonia, where he should be back in the next few days.

Christian Téin's return soon

Téin remains under pre-trial conditions until he is judged, at a yet undetermined date.

Téin and a "Collectif Solidarité Kanaky 18" however announced Téin was to hold a public meeting themed "Which way for the Decolonisation of Kanaky-New Caledonia?" on 22 November 2025 in the small French city of Bourges, local media reported, adding "this will be his last public address before he returns to New Caledonia".

Tutugoro says things worsened since the negotiations that led to the signing of a Bougival agreement, in July 2025, from which FLNKS pulled out in August 2025, denouncing what they termed a "lure of independence".

"This agreement now separates us from the new FLNKS. And this is another reason for us to say we have nothing left to do" (with them), said Tutugoro.

UPM recalls it was a founding member of the FLNKS in 1984.

UPM, PALIKA founding members of the FLNKS 41 years ago

On 14 November, the PALIKA [Kanak Liberation Party] revealed the outcome of its 50th Congress held six days earlier, which now makes official its withdrawal from the FLNKS (a platform it was part of since the FLNKS was set up in 1984).

It originally comprised PALIKA, UPM [Progressist Union in Melanesia], Union Calédonienne (UC) and Wallisian-based Rassemblement démocratique océanien (RDO).

The PALIKA said it decided to formally split from FLNKS because it disagreed with the FLNKS approach since the May 2024 riots.

Since the PALIKA announcement, its spokesman Charles Washetine told several local media his party was still supporting a project of "full sovereignty" with France, through negotiation and dialogue.

But "it's certainly not through destruction that we will build something for our children", he stressed.

He admitted the Bougival text was "perfectible" and still required some clarifications, especially in relation to the power retrocessions process and which legal instrument would be used to action those gradual handovers from France to New Caledonia.

After the FLNKS Congress held in August 2024, PALIKA and UPM had already distanced themselves from the FLNKS and the CCAT (Field Action Coordinating Cell, a group that was tasked late 2023 to organise protests against a French-planned Constitutional change that later degenerated into the riots that claimed the lives of 14 people), saying they "did not recognise themselves" in the radical approach.

Neither PALIKA nor UPM took part in the August 2024 Congress, as FLNKS resolved at the time that "mobilisation tools" such as CCAT (set up by Union Calédonienne) and several other groups, were officially accepted into the party's fold.

Pro-independence moderates united as 'UNI'

Tutugoro said UPM is now determined to continue working with PALIKA as a National Union for Independence (Union Nationale pour l'Indépendance, UNI) united group and to grow into a fully-fledged political party, in preparation of municipal and later provincial elections.

He said the UPM also reaffirmed its support for the Bougival agreement, which sets a roadmap for a "State of New Caledonia", its associated New Caledonian nationality within the French realm and further transfers of powers from France.

After ten days of intense negotiations, the Bougival project was signed in the small town of Bougival (West of Paris) by politicians representing both pro-France and pro-independence parties, including the FLNKS.

But in August 2025, the FLNKS said it withdrew its negotiators' signatures, but was willing to discuss only in "bilateral" mode with France and with a short-term target of "full sovereignty".

It has also claimed on numerous occasions that FLNKS was the only legitimate voice of the indigenous Kanak people's struggle for independence.

All the other parties have since maintained strong support for the Bougival deal as a basis for further discussions and eventual implementation.

On the moderate pro-independence side, both UPM and PALIKA said they believed attaining independence was still possible under the Bougival process.

"It allows the creation of a State of New Caledonia and it provides prospects for the population to build together an international recognition", Tutugoro told journalists on Wednesday.

During her first visit to New Caledonia last week, newly-appointed French Minister for Overseas Naïma Moutchou said the Bougival pact would be submitted to a "consultation" in New Caledonia, akin to a local referendum, so as to give it more popular weight.

Signatories placed under police protection

Since all the signatories returned to New Caledonia in July 2025, they have been placed under personal police VIP protection.

At the height of the May 2024 insurrectional riots that claimed the lives of 14 people, destroyed hundreds of businesses and made tens of thousands of unemployed (with an estimated over €2 billion and a GDP drop of 13.5 percent), Tutugoro's house was part of numerous private properties targeted by arsonists.

Local politicians are still believed to remain under VIP police personal guard.

In a media statement last week, the FLNKS reiterates its stance, saying "the so-called Bougival project cannot constitute a working base because it goes against (New Caledonia's) decolonisation process".

"It's written in black and white in the Bougival agreement project: the decolonisation process goes on", Moutchou swiftly clarified while still in New Caledonia.

In a thinly-veiled threat, the party also warns against "Any attempt of forceful passage (passage en force) risks bringing the country to a situation of lasting instability".

Security: 'zero tolerance'

In terms of security, Moutchou said "to be very clear, it will be zero tolerance".

"Security forces will stay as long as needed. We currently have twenty gendarmerie squadrons (over 2500 personnel). This is twenty out of the 120 squads available for the whole of France", she told NC la 1ère.

As a matter for comparison, when the riots broke out on 13 May 2024, there were only six law enforcement squadrons posted in New Caledonia. Significant reinforcement came during the following weeks, reaching 20 squads of police and gendarmerie, despite a high security demand at the time on the Paris-hosted Olympics.

"I'm very attached to the authority of the State. There are rules and they must be respected. You can demonstrate, you can say you don't agree. But you don't cross the red line", she told Radio Rythme Bleu on Friday 14 November 2025.

The FLNKS, still rejecting the Bougival process, said during the minister's visit, they have handed over a project for a "framework agreement" that would serve as a "basis" for "future discussions" with France, but without including any other party in the negotiating process and therefore excluding the inclusive, bipartisan and consensual mode.

It did not immediately react to UPM's latest announcement.

On the pro-France side, several leaders have reacted favourably to Moutchou's parting release.

"The minister's visit concludes on a positive note", Rassemblement-LR leader Virginie Ruffenach wrote on social networks, saying this citizen consultation project will "turn New Caledonians into judges of peace".

"At this stage, FLNKS does not seem to want to find an agreement with the (French) State and New Caledonia's political forces. The other forces have therefore made the choice to submit the Bougival agreement to New Caledonians before the (French) Parliament approves a Constitutional Bill", wrote Les Loyalistes leader Sonia Backès.

Pro-independence 'moderate' pro-Bougival vs anti-Bougival hardliners

In the new situation and two currents (pro and anti Bougival) in existence within the pro-independence camp, however, it remains unclear on what basis this de facto local referendum will be held in terms of electoral roll and lists, who will be qualified to vote and how the question asked will be formulated.

The three recent referenda on New Caledonia's independence were held (in 2018, 2020 and 2021) under a "special list" of citizens meeting specific requirements in terms of birth place, ancestry and duration of residence.

All three consultations resulted in a majority "NO" to independence.

Since 2022, under the guidance of New Caledonia's autonomy Nouméa Accord (signed in 1998), New Caledonia's political stakeholders have attempted to meet inclusively and draw the conclusions from the post-referenda "situation thus created" (as formulated in the 1998 pact) and find a new course for the French Pacific territory's political future.

Over the past four years, participants (and no less than half a dozen Ministers for Overseas) deplored the recurrent non-attendance of Union Calédonienne to any inclusive, plenary and bipartisan session attempt.