New Caledonia

Capital: Nouméa
Population: 196 000
Official language: French
"Majority" group: 43% of Kanaks (Melanesians)
Minority groups: 37% of French, 20% of Asians and Polynesians,
Political system: French territory of overseas since 1946, but endowed of a particular statute since the law of November 9, 1988; in way to acquire the statute of POM (country of overseas)
Constitutional articles (language): art. 2 of the Constitution of 1958 (modified)
Linguistic laws: several French laws of which the law n° 84-821 of September 6 carrying statute of the territory of New Caledonia; the law n° 75-620 of July 1975 11 relative to the education; the law no 84-52 of January 26, 1984 considering the higher education; the law of orientation n° 89-486 of July 10, 1989 considering the education; the decree n° 93-535 of March 27, 1993 carrying approval of the notebook of the missions and the loads of the national Society of broadcasting and French television overseas for the (RFO); the law no 88-1028 of November 9, 1988 carrying statutory and preparatory arrangements to the self-determination of New Caledonia in 1998; the law organic no 99-209 of March 19, 1999 relative to New Caledonia.
New Caledonia is a French territory of situated overseas in the Pacific-South, either to 1500 km to the East of Australia and to 1700 km to the north of New Zealand (look at the card 1 of the Pacific-South). She is constituted of a main island, the Big Earth, and of several dependences, that represent a total surface of 18 585 km2. Thus, after Papua New Guinea and New Zealand, New Caledonia represents the third island in importance of the Pacific-South. Situated besides to a few 18 000 km of the Metropolis, she/it is part of one of the three French territories of the Pacific-South, with the French Polynesia and Wallis-Et-Futuna. Juridical talking, Wallis-Et-Futuna detains TOM'S statute (territory of overseas), whereas the French Polynesia acquired, in June 1999, the statute of POM (country of overseas); as for New Caledonia, she is also in way to acquire a similar statute progressively from about twenty years.

I GEOGRAPHICAL SITUATION
1 The Grande Terre and the other islands
The main island, the Grande Terre, covers a surface of 16 890 km2 and spreads on a length of 400 km and a width of 50 km. Also nicknamed "the Stone" by the New Caledonian, the Grande Terre is a mountainous island whose basement conceals many ores, notably the nickel that assures a good part of the incomes of New Caledonia.
The Grande Terre continues by several groups of small such isolated islands the islands Loyalty to 100 km in the East (2200 km2 for the four islands: Ouvéa, Lifou, Tiga and Maré), as well as the archipelago of Bélep to the north (220 km2) and the island of the Pines to the south (to see the card 2). New Caledonia also counts currently a big number of islets uninhabited: Chesterfield, Walpole, Surprise, Huon, Matthew, Fearn, Hunter, Beautemps-Beaupré, etc.
2 the organization of the territory in three provinces
The present organization of the territory of New Caledonia raises of the law no 88.1028 of November 9, 1988, date to which has been signed the agreements of Matignon. To the point of political view, New Caledonia is divided in three provinces managed by elected assemblies to the universal suffrage. The Convention of the territory forms the union of the three provincial assemblies. The three provinces are the following:
1) the North province (north part of the Grande Terre and the archipelago of the Béleps) containing the territories of the townships of Bélep, Poums, Ouegoas, Pouebos, Hienghènes, Touhos, Poindimiés, Ponerihouens, Houailous, Canalas, Koumacs, Kaala-Gomens, Kouaoua,Vohs, Konés and Pouembouts. The North province, with its 41 413 inhabitants, account for 21% of the New Caledonian population.
2) the province South (left south) of the Grande Terre and the island of the Pines) containing the territories of the townships of the island of the Pines, Mount-Golden, Nouméa, Dumbéa, Païta, Bouloupari, The Foa, Moindou, Sarraméa, Farino, Bourail, Thio and Yaté. The province South is the more populated (134 546 inhabitants), and it counts for 68, 4% of the total population.
3) To the East, the province of the Islands-Loyalty consisting of the territories of the Maré islands, Lifous, Ouvéas and Tigas. The province of the Islands-Loyalty only shelters 10,6% of the New Caledonian (20 877 inhabitants).
The territory of the township of Poya is, as for it, distributed between the provinces North and South by decree of the Council of state. The limits of the provinces can be modified on proposition of the Convention of the territory and after opinion of the assemblies of provinces and the interested city councils, and of the customary Senate by decree in Council of state.
II HISTORIC DATA
According to some archaeological sources, the first occupants of New Caledonia, of the Melanesians, the forebears of the present Kanaks, would have appeared has about 5000 years from the Asian Southeast, notably of the present Malaysia. There are more than 3000 years; there would also have been waves of immigration of other islands of the Pacific, notably of the Salomon islands and Vanuatu. One also believes that the Polynesians would have approached the islands Loyalty from Tonga, Samoa and the Fiji islands.

1 The arrival of the Europeans
New Caledonia was first colonized by the British, then by the French.
1.1 The British
In 1774, the famous English navigator James Cook, who had already become famous in 1759 at the time of the hold of Quebec, was the first European to discover New Caledonia at the time of his second expedition in the Pacific, the one of 1772-1775,; he/it approached the north of the Grande Terre in the first place, more precisely to Jaunt (Balabio), September 5, 1774. He baptized this country the New Caledonia because of the landscapes looking like the Scottish Caledonia, his native country, situated to the north of the Lowlanders,; these are the Romans who had named Caledonia the north of the island of Britain. Some days later, September 20, having reached the extremity of the Big Earth, he discovered Pines Island (the island of the Pines).
As for the islands Loyalty, it would be of other British explorers that, considering the "faithful" character of the islanders, would have baptized these islands Loyalty Islands that the French translated by islands Loyalty then. Cook had also noted that the country was populated by Melanesians (the forebears of the Kanaks). But, thereafter, New Caledonia was not the object of a particular interest on behalf of the English who didn't occupy it. In 1840, the teachers of the London Missionary Society settled to the islands Loyalty in order to evangelize the natives and to convert them to the Protestantism. On its side, the Mission French mariste, benefiting from the support of the state and the army, got settled in the islands, December 20, 1843, and tempted to convert the natives to the Catholicism. The islands Loyalty became then the theatre, often bloody, of stern struggles to can between the Protestant pastors and the Catholic missionaries.
1.2 The French
After the English Cook, the French, Bruny of Entrecasteaux and Huons of Kermadec, accosted to the island of the Pines June 7, 1792. But it is only in 1825 that are undertaken by French, Jules Sebastian-Caesar Dumont of Urville, and a summary of the coasts of New Caledonia. Since 1844, the first French soldiers disembarked on the Grande Terre and the first massacres of natives had place in 1847. In November 1850, the Melanesians killed 12 French sailors unloaded of the ship The Alcmène. In reprisals, under the orders of Napoleon III, commodore Febvrier-Despointes took possession, in the name of France, of the Grande Terre (September 24, 1853) and then of the island of the Pines (September 29). It is from this moment that started the actual political history of New Caledonia.
1.3 The languages in presence
To this time, the natives used their maternal language and, if need be, the bichlamar, a pidgin useful Anglo-melanesian to communicate with the tradesmen or between the various peoples Melanesians. For their part, the Protestant missionaries privileged some of the autochthonous languages in order to evangelize the "natives" better - as one called the Melanesians at the time - of the islands: the drehu in Lifou, the nengone to Maré and the ïaaï in Ouvéa. On the Grande Terre, the pastors encouraged the ajië, the language of Houaïlou.
For what is a Catholic missionary, they preferred to use French, without forbidding the practice of the autochthonous languages however, solely. On the whole, three languages were in situation of competition: English, French and the bichlamar. It says, the French missionaries didn't carry in high consideration the autochthonous languages. September 3, 1846, the father Pierre Rougeyron wrote this letter to his superior about the "language of the New Caledonians"
It was there a very widespread conception on behalf of all Europeans. They believed to be indeed, among the humans, a superior race destined to bring the kindness of the civilization to the poor natives. It is a little as to the United States, today, where a very strong ideology that lets believe exists that the Americans have a messianic mission consisting in bringing the true values in the world. Thus, the armies of the "world civilized" have the "divine mission" to free the oppressed, leave to pull them over if they are too silly to understand that they bring them joy and happiness.