New Caledonia's main pro-independence party has asked the United Nations to be an official mediator in talks with France in order to set up a fair and transparent referendum on independence by 2018.
The call was made at the UN in New York by Roch Wamytan, who was one of the signatories of the 1998 Noumea Accord that has served as the territory's decolonisation roadmap.
Mr Wamytan says his group has already approached the UN five times to express its concern about the electoral rolls being flawed, describing the issue as the mother of all battles in every decolonisation case.
He says there is now an impasse over the rolls because last week's meeting in Paris with New Caledonian leaders again deferred the issue.
Another Kanak leader, Daniel Goa, says electoral fraud has been combined with a policy of massive immigration with the aim of marginalising the Kanak people.
Roch Wamytan Photo: AFP