Intended as a demonstration of French imperialist weight in the region, Chirac’s tour was tarnished a little by Kanak opponents of French rule during his visit to New Caledonia, another French colonial possession in the region, and by protests in Tahiti during his visit there. In New Caledonia, pro-independence forces greeted the French president with a protest strike and two days of demonstrations.

On July 23 Chirac defended New Caledonia’s colonial status before a rally in Noumea, the capital. The crowd was estimated at 15,000 people by the daily newspaper Les Nouvelles Calédoniennes.

“The collective interest…is not in separatism and withdrawal, but in being part of a larger community,” Chirac argued. “Despite yesterday’s disagreements and today’s debates, despite difficulties caused by cultural differences and social inequality, New Caledonia is carving out a unique destiny in France and the Pacific.”

Some 2,000 people joined the protest rally organized by the Kanak and Exploited Workers Union (USTKE). “Chirac, don’t forget you have Kanak blood on your hands,” read one banner—a reference to killings of Kanak leaders by French troops during a pro-independence upsurge in the mid-1980s. At that time Paris occupied the country with 10,000 troops.

“The protesters said Chirac was unwelcome,” reported the Reuters news agency. “Some called on him to free jailed French farmer activist Jose Bové”—who made headlines by leading attacks on McDonalds outlets in France—“or berated him for French testing in the Pacific.”

Following the rally, leaders of the USTKE said they would stay on strike for the remainder of Chirac’s three-day visit. The union’s members are mostly workers from the Kanak nationality, the indigenous people of the island who number some 46 percent of New Caledonia’s 196,000 people.

Continuing his “larger community” theme, Chirac used his visit to Noumea to pull the plug on a census in New Caledonia that had been planned for the week following his visit. References in the survey’s questions to ethnic origins were “outrageous,” he said. “There’s only one reply to such a question and that is you are all French and there are French people of all ethnic origins.” Census officials promptly announced that the census would be postponed for a year, allowing changes to be made.  
 
More Kanak protests
Chirac faced more Kanak protesters the next day during a welcome ceremony at Kone in the North Province, which, along with the Loyalty Islands, is one of the two regions governed by the Kanak Socialist National Liberation Front. The Southern Province, which includes Noumea and is by far the wealthiest of the three, is headed by the pro-Paris Rally for Caledonia within the Republic.

As the French president listened to the official welcome by pro-independence spokesman Paul Neaoutyine, chants of “Chirac murderer” from Kanak protesters were countered by shouts of “We are with you Chirac.” Police fired tear gas at the demonstrators but the winds blew it back towards the official ceremony.

The Kanak protesters demanded that the French government honor the 1998 Noumea accord, which assigned the government of New Caledonia power over its own affairs, excluding aspects of foreign policy and military matters, the legal system, and the printing of money. The accord also postponed the promised referendum on independence until sometime between 2014 and 2018.

Chirac later took part in a meeting to discuss nickel-mining projects in the region. New Caledonia is the world’s third-largest producer of nickel, with an estimated quarter of the world’s reserves. The country also has substantial military value as the site of three French military bases.

French Polynesia also plays a key part in maintaining Paris’s strategic military capability, including its development of a nuclear arsenal. For years, nuclear weapons were tested above and then below ground at Moruroa Atoll, until tests were finally stopped in 1996.

In French Polynesia Oscar Temaru, head of the political party Tavini Huiraatira and mayor of Faa’a, the colony’s most populous town, refused to join official welcoming ceremonies. “The arrival of the President of the Republic, welcomed like a king in French Polynesia, is a provocation,” he said. Temaru’s party joined with other partisans of independence, including unionists and former workers in the nuclear industry, to protest Chirac’s visit.

According to the New Zealand Herald, the French president “saluted French Polynesia’s role in safeguarding national security by allowing France to conduct nuclear tests in the Pacific territory.”

Chirac claimed that “without Polynesia, France would not be the great power it is, able to express in the family of nations an autonomous, independent, and respected position.”  
 
Chirac hosts regional meeting
On July 28, the last day of his visit to French Polynesia, Chirac hosted a one-day meeting of heads of state in Oceania. A range of governments from impoverished South Pacific island states to imperialist New Zealand were represented. Only the governments of Australia and Tonga stayed away.

“France is determined to step up its efforts to promote the development of the entire region,” Chirac said. “We have a shared responsibility to respond in order to thwart the emergence of conditions that breed…instability.”

Earlier in July the governments of Australia and New Zealand, the two imperialist powers located in Oceania, announced imminent plans to intervene in the Solomon Islands with a total of almost 1,750 military and police personnel. Smaller numbers of troops and police from South Pacific countries such as Fiji and Papua New Guinea will also be involved. The forces began landing July 24. The island chain is home to 450,000 people.

Paris, which retains more Pacific colonies than any of its imperialist rivals, was shut out of this intervention by John Howard, the Australian prime minister. Howard overruled his foreign minister, who had originally recommended that the French military be invited to contribute.

At the Papeete gathering, the French president stated that “regional organizations can often play a vital role. With that in mind, France welcomes the decision of Pacific Islands forum governments to assist the government of the Solomon Islands. But it would be a mistake to set up a regional logic in opposition to that of the United Nations,” said Chirac, whose government holds veto power in the UN Security Council.  
 
 
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