Pacific / French Polynesia

En Marche dumps Tahiti's Garbet

05:46 am on 5 February 2018

En Marche shakes up Tahiti team Photo: AFP or licensors

France's ruling En Marche Party has dumped its representative in French Polynesia Heimana Garbet.

Its headquarters in Paris has issued a statement, saying the interim representative is now Maeva Salmon.

It said Mr Garbet had publicly expressed positions which were contrary to the party's values, but didn't elaborate.

Last month, he was involved in a failed bid to form a coalition with politicians not currently in the assembly to contest the territorial election in April.

Also last month, a former minister Tauhiti Nena challenged Mr Garbet to proclaim that he was now En Marche's affiliate in Tahiti.

En Marche is yet to set up a formal party in French Polynesia or declare an alliance with other politicians to form an electoral list.

In last year's presidential elections, French Polynesian parties backed rivals of the En Marche leader Emmanuel Macron until the May run-off vote against the National Front's Marine Le Pen when only the Tahoeraa Huiraatita backed her and all others sided with Mr Macron.