French Polynesia's veteran politician Gaston Flosse says he wants the territory to become a sovereign state in association with France.
Veteran French Polynesian politician, Gaston Flosse. Photo: RNZ Pacific
The former president again outlined his vision of holding an independence referendum in about five years while presenting his party's candidates for this year's French National Assembly elections.
For decades, Flosse advocated against independence while seeking to enhance French Polynesia's autonomy, but he now said this statute had run its course, likening it to a colonial autonomy.
According to Flosse, the autonomy worked as long as Jacques Chirac was French president, but it had since been eroded and French Polynesia could be on track to be turned into a French department.
While the pro-independence Tavini Huiraatira party of Oscar Temaru has opted to pursue its decolonisation efforts via the United Nations, Flosse wants a phased and bilateral process.
Flosse said in a first step, professional expertise had to be built up as many executives had left Tahiti.
He added that the French constitution's article 88 also needed to be amended to accommodate such an association.
But most importantly, he said, France needed to pay $US1.2 billion a year to provide and fund services, such as security, for the duration of the transition to full sovereignty.
Flosse said for geo-political reasons, France wanted to stay in the Indo-Pacific region, and it did not want to miss out on the wealth, including rare earths, in French Polynesia's marine zone.
He said he was therefore confident France would agree to the request because otherwise, French Polynesia could turn to countries which were interested in such access.
Flosse said Temaru's ambitions pointed in the same direction but that the latter had ruled out making French Polynesia a state associated with France.
When the United Nations reinscribed French Polynesia on its decolonisation list in 2013, Flosse objected to the move and asked France to facilitate a referendum on independence to gauge the public's view.
Flosse, who was president at the time, also moved resolution in the assembly to inform the Pacific Islands Forum that a majority was against the territory's reinscription on the UN list.
He warned that his party would call for a boycott should a self-determination referendum be organised under the auspices of the UN.
In 2020, when Flosse had long lost all offices over corruption convictions, he proposed a statute of free association, but Temaru immediately dismissed the announcement.
He described Flosse's call for sovereignty his latest bait to mislead the public and accused him of wanting to be the new caliph.
Election hopes
Presenting the candidates for this year's French National Assembly election, Flosse nominated himself in the first of the three constituencies.
However, for the time being he remains unable to stand because of a 2020 court conviction in Tahiti affecting him and also involving the current president Edouard Fritch.
Last week, the administrative control commission in Papeete struck him off the electoral roll - only days after he reregistered, citing the 2020 court ruling, which made him ineligible for public office for five years.
Flosse had earlier taken the Tahiti case to France's highest appeal court, unsuccessfully claiming that pending a final verdict in Paris, his rights should all be restored.
A ruling in Paris is expected shortly.
For the second constituency, Flosse's party nominated Jonathan Tarihaa and for the third, it chose a former minister Tauhiti Nena.
Flosse said winning two of the three seats was the aim to advance his sovereignty project in France.
He then hoped his newly renamed Amuitahiraa no te nunaa Maohi party would succeed in next year's territorial election after the setback four years ago.
In 2018, the ruling Tapura Huiraatira Party of Edouard Fritch, largely made up of former Flosse followers, was re-elected with a two-thirds majority.
This was possible thanks to an electoral system which favours the party winning most votes by attributing it a third of all seats as a bonus.
Flosse's Tahoeraa Huiraatira party and Temaru's Tavini had jointly won a larger share of the popular vote.
According to Flosse, rolling out his project could culminate in an independence referendum in 2026 or 2027.
To date, however, Paris has steered clear of any suggestion that it was ever considering holding an independence referendum in French Polynesia.
France also resents the UN's inclusion of French Polynesia on the decolonisation list, describing the move as a glaring interference and as a result, shunning any co-operation.