REPORTING. In New Caledonia, the confusion of the “Zoreilles” before the third referendum: “Leave, but pa – franceinfo

Jean-Marc Vian still manages to fall asleep. He did not “never woke up in the middle of the night “, “sweaty”, in the departure lounge of the airport, “lost in the middle of luggage and boxes”. The suitcases have not moved from the large closet in the bedroom. But there, “it’s a little thing that runs through my head”, as the date of December 12 approaches, the day of third and last independence referendum from New Caledonia.

After twenty-two years clinging to this little “Pebble” of the South Pacific, Jean-Marc Vian could perhaps fall from it. Boss of a nautical equipment company in Noumea, he wonders: “Concretely, if the ‘yes’ passes, what do I do? I stay? I go? I wait? No need to be out of Saint-Cyr to understand the problem. If there is independence, I’m not sure there are that many people consuming. It means less sales, therefore less cash flow. Point bar. ” Before the first ballot, in 2018, he had promised himself to have three months in advance in cash. Race report: “I’m more like three months late here.”

The entrepreneur, born in Paris fifty-seven years ago, is not the only one to bite his nails. The High Commission of the Republic, the representation of the French State in New Caledonia, ordered at the beginning of the year a “deep listening“, a kind of citizen consultation, to put figures on a feeling. After several weeks of investigation, the first results are available: “The projection gives 10,400 departures, some in the event of independence, and 24,700 possible departures “, analyzes Stéphane Renaud, director of the Quid Novi NC institute, who conducted the series of interviews.

Among them, mostly “Zoreilles”, as the non-natives are called here, like Jean-Marc Vian, that is to say those who are neither Kanaks nor Caldoches, as the Europeans born on the Caillou are called. In 2019, during the last census carried out by the‘Isee (Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies of New Caledonia), the archipelago had 57,776 non-natives of French nationality, or just over 20% of the total population. Seven in ten had a job, mostly executive or intermediate professions.

Waiting for, “Like nothing ever happened”, Raymonde Couchoud continues to teach WWII to her final year students in a vocational school in Nouméa. “However, if it is necessary to repatriate teachers, I will be in the cart, guesses the 50-year-old professor of letters and history-geography. We try not to think about it but it catches up with us. I am in total vagueness. ”

It is in fact written in black and white in the official document which details the economic, legal and social consequences of a “yes” or “no” victory in this last referendum. Page 22 : “Teachers with the status of civil servants will be offered an assignment on the national territory.” Further away, page 33, it is about the military: “In the event of independence (…), the French internal security forces will leave the territory of the new state.”

Go or stay? Laurent Pery is also asking the question. Or rather, he got “really asked the question a few weeks ago, before the independence leaders decided not to participate in the December 12 poll.” “Yes, it’s a discussion we had with my wife”, confesses the general practitioner, who has been treating Caledonians for twenty-three years. First on the island of Ouvéa, then for SOS Médecins in Nouméa, Dumbéa, Païta and Mont-Dore, and now in Magenta, in a practice that has almost its feet in the water. “Would we have the possibility to work the same way? Would we have the same school system for our children? The same health system? It is a discussion that I can also have with certain patients, certain colleagues. “

At the end of August, in fact, Doctor Pery put down his stethoscope and created a survey for doctors in the archipelago. Eight questions were asked, published on a private Facebook group. Eighty-eight general practitioners and 42 specialists responded. In case of victory of the “yes” Sunday, 45.4% said “be sure to leave Caledonia”. “The institutional future” is the main reason advanced by nearly one in two doctors to justify this departure.

Jordane Breyton, 29 years old, including ten of seniority on the Grande Terre, also says what he has on his heart: “Yes, independence would upset our plans. The idea would not be to leave the next day at 9 am. We would wait to see how it goes. But we would have little hope of staying because we suspect that we could not maintain the same quality of life. I have a young child, it is sometimes difficult to plan for several months or several years “, loose this employee of a wine importing company. He has an anecdote to tell: “We had the good idea to make an offer to buy our apartment some time before the second referendum in 2020. When we saw that the vote gap was narrowing, we squeezed our buttocks.”

“You are asking yourself legitimate questions. What would become of your credit? What would become of the local currency? Our apartment is a little over 300,000 euros and a loan over 25 years. It is not nothing.”

And then by the way, “to go, but to go where? asks Laurent Pery. I am 55 years old, New Caledonia is the place where I have spent the most time since I was born. ” Jordane and his companion thought of Tahiti, Reunion, Asia, but without great conviction. Jean-Marc Vian does have a family home in the Landes, but “Damn, with us, it’s here, half of my professional life is here. I have fifteen employees, what do I do?

A few weeks ago, he should have applied the new electrical standards to his company. And so put your hand in the wallet. The boss procrastinated: “Do I have 40,000 euros to put into this work, when I don’t know if I can stay? While I don’t know what my salary will be in February? Now is not the time to take risks. “

In recent months, real estate agencies in New Caledonia have seen new profiles push their doors: owners who want to sell their property to be rented out. “in case”. “It is in the minority, but it exists. It is in their eyes a way of reassuring themselves, while waiting for things to get better”, conceived Alexandre Rodriguez, professional based in the south of Nouméa.

Some did not have the patience to wait for the result of the third referendum to pack up and redo, in the other direction, the 17,000 kilometers that had separated them from France for, sometimes, several decades. Isee did the math : Between 2014 and 2019 it recorded 27,600 departures and 17,300 arrivals, i.e. a deficit of 10,300 people. “Three quarters of departures concern people who were not born in New Caledonia”, confirms to franceinfo Olivier Fagnot, its director. And there again, among the reasons put forward, “the iInstitutional uncertainty related to referendums “.

This is exactly what we have been repeating for years in the corridors of the association Un coeur une voice, which campaigns to revise the electorate. It is because the Caledonian electoral system hits as much on the head as the sun. Unlike the rest of France, which has a single list, the same voter can be registered here on three different lists which each correspond to very specific ballots: the general list for the presidential, legislative, municipal and European , the special provincial electoral list for the elections of the same name, and finally the special consultation electoral list for the referendum.

To give more influence to the Kanak population, made a minority by successive waves of immigration since colonization in 1853, the Noumea agreement had in fact created restrictions. To be able to vote on the 12th, you have to meet certain criteria, by justifying for example “for a period of twenty years of continuous residence in New Caledonia by December 31, 2014 at the latest“, writes the Electoral Code. This increases for some the feeling of being citizens of “second zone”. “That I am excluded from the referendum, passes again, itwas the starting deal, is willing to concede Raphaël Romano, the president of the association Un coeur une voice. But to be excluded from the provincial elections, non. I have lived and worked here for twenty-two years. The provincials, it is the ballot which determines the school program of my children, which determines the taxation, which determines the health. “

“In short, I am told, ‘Thank you for everything, but you stay home. You pay your taxes and you shut up.’

Raphael Romano

to franceinfo

For Sunday, referendum day, Jean-Marc Vian has an appointment “from 6 hours” in Dumbéa, in the agglomeration of Nouméa, to open the doors of a polling station of which he accepted to be the president. Doctor Pery, who is not authorized to slip a ballot into the ballot box, will celebrate his daughter’s 8th birthday. Jordane Breyton, he planned “a quick bite to eat with some friends while waiting for the results”. He already sees the scene: “We’re going to turn on the TV around 7:30 pm. Then, at 8 pm, the results. I can already feel the little stress that will mount when the numbers appear roughly on the screen.” For the moment, Jordane is still expected by his boss on Monday morning.