Politics: Manuel Valls will travel to New Caledonia on Tuesday to try to save the Bougival Agreement.

Overseas Minister Manuel Valls is expected in New Caledonia on Tuesday, where he is due to meet with local political figures to try to save the agreement on the future of the territory, signed in July but since rejected by the main independence movement , his ministry announced on Sunday.

A week after the rejection of the text by the Socialist Kanak National Liberation Front (FLNKS), Manuel Valls is due to visit the archipelago from Tuesday to Saturday with the "aim of continuing the dialogue around the Bougival agreement" and to set up a drafting committee for this purpose, according to the ministry.

"The Bougival agreement must and will be implemented"

"I am going (...) to New Caledonia to explain, clarify, complete, and convince as much as necessary," the minister said in an interview published Sunday by Le Parisien . "I don't want to force things through. But there is no credible alternative to Bougival."

This is what he will try to convince traditional senators, mayors and provincial presidents of starting Wednesday, before "bilateral" meetings, according to the provisional agenda outlined by his ministry.

The following day, Thursday, he is to officially install an editorial committee before meeting with elected officials from the northern province of the archipelago.

"The Bougival Agreement must be implemented, and it will be implemented," Manuel Valls believes. "Without it, the entire political, economic, and social structure of New Caledonia would collapse." "That's why I want to convince the FLNKS to sign up to the agreement during our bilateral meeting. (...) We can enrich the Bougival Agreement and provide clarifications, but we cannot call into question its overall balance," he warns in the interview with Le Parisien.

Agreement after violent riots

Manuel Valls defends an agreement allowing the creation of a State of New Caledonia with a fundamental law, a Caledonian nationality and competence in international relations, while ensuring that the Bougival text recognizes the Kanak identity.

The "Bougival draft agreement" is incompatible "with the foundations and achievements of our struggle," Dominique Fochi, secretary general of the Caledonian Union and member of the FLNKS political bureau, stated on Wednesday during a press conference a few days after an extraordinary congress of the movement.

In May 2024, violence triggered by a proposed electoral reform left 14 dead and caused several billion euros of damage across the country.