French minister for overseas François-Noël Buffet addresses New Caledonia’s salvage, recovery and refoundation colloquium on 17 October 2024 at the Tjibaou Cultural Centre in Nouméa. Photo: RRB
Announcements from France's Minister for Overseas François-Noël Buffet as part of his current visit to New Caledonia have received a lukewarm welcome, especially from the private sector.
In a news conference on Thursday, during a four-day visit in the French Pacific archipelago, Buffet said on top of the some €400 million already disbursed over the past five months in emergency assistance, France would remain committed to New Caledonia.
New Caledonia has been severely hit economically after violent unrest broke out in May this year, causing some €2.2 billion in material damage.
Buffet said the French State would fund the reconstruction of "100 percent" of schools that have been damaged or destroyed during the riots, as well as 70 percent of other public buildings.
The visiting French minister's economic announcements come with a backdrop of severely constrained financial conditions faced by the French government, which has just recently tabled its 2025 Appropriation Bill, still subject to Parliament debates before it is endorsed.
Already integrated into the Bill is another measure for New Caledonia: a French State guarantee of up to €500m that could enable theFrench territory to contract further loans with the French development Agency (AFD).
Some political parties, notably the moderately pro-France Calédonie Ensemble, issued an angry release.
Its leader Philippe Gomès particularly opposed the French guarantee: "To add this to another €420m in Covid loans and the €835m that we will need just to get through 2025 would be sheer madness," he said in a release.
"Our country is burning and the state is looking the other way."
Loyalist (pro-France) leader and one of New Caledonia's elected MPs at the French National Assembly, Nicolas Metzdorf, said the French state "clearly" doesn't seem to grasp the extent of the urgency.
According to statistics unveiled this week by the local Chamber of Commerce and Industry, 800 businesses have been destroyed at various levels during the quasi-insurrectional riots, and over 10,000 jobs have been lost, amounting to some 30 percent of New Caledonia's GDP (gross domestic product).
A total of 13 people have died, including 11 civilians and two French gendarmes.
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But many companies were expecting more from Buffet, including the funding of more benefits to assist those who have partially lost their employment.
The private sector also pointed out that more was needed simply to maintain sufficient law and order and fully restore confidence in order to reach a complete "de-escalation".
Another expectation was concerning insurance companies, who have recently decided to withdraw the "riots" and "public unrest" coverage in any new contract.
One business owner told the conference: "Without this clause, many of us will simply not be able to re-build."
Earlier on Thursday, Buffet visited Nouméa's industrial area of Ducos, where he met several business owners, some of whom had lost everything, especially during the first three days of the riots, in May 2024.
Ducos was then a clear target for rioters.
French minister for Overseas François-Noël Buffet meets business leader Nicolas Guesdon, whose hardware company was completely looted and destroyed by fire in May 2024. Photo: RRB
Local business union MEDEF-NC representative Mimsy Daly told the conference there's been €1b in damage to private companies.
"And until today, only 15 percent of this sum has been paid by the insurance companies."
She said for businesses to have to wait until the end of this year (as insurance companies say for about 80 percent of the claims) to receive insurance compensation was "a very long time".
CCI President David Guyenne told local media there are those that had seen their businesses burn - "but there are also those whose buildings were not destroyed, who managed to stay open, but have lost between 70 to 90 percent of their business activity and turnover".
Although the situation is recognised as having largely normalised, certain hot spots remain, especially in the village of Saint Louis, near the capital Nouméa, where a provincial road is still considered dangerous for motorists.
Buffet made his announcements as part of a five-day conference inaugurated Thursday at Nouméa's Tjibaou cultural centre around a "salvage, reconstruction and refoundation" (dubbed 'S2R') plan initiated by the local government, and which purports to draw a roadmap for New Caledonia's socio-economic future.
The three-year plan so far claims to have the support of a large panel of business, politics and civil society sectors, public or private.
It is based on the principle of wide-ranging reforms to most of the sectors.
New Caledonia’s President Louis Mapou presents his post-riots recovery plan during a conference at the Nouméa Tjibaou Cultural centre on Thursday 17 October. Photo: LNC
New Caledonian government President Louis Mapou, addressing the French minister, said local players needed France's "massive support" for the rest of 2024 and the whole of 2025 and further as part of a partnership.
Buffet, in response, assured that "(French) national solidarity will continue", but in the same breath said, both at the conference and repeatedly to local media in separate interviews, that "France was making all the necessary efforts, but within its means".
"I am not a merchant of dreams," he told local Radio Rythme Bleu on Friday.
He however acknowledged that the highest risk faced by New Caledonia in the short term was that it would "sink into an extremely grave economic and social situation".
"But if there are people of good will, as we see here, then we can manage to do something to avoid this."
Buffet's visit was focused on Friday on encounters and talks with a wide-ranging panel of local political parties (both pro-France and pro-independence) represented at the Congress of New Caledonia.