THE KANAK independence party, the FLNKS, last month won three out of four regions in New Caledonian elections called by the French government. This result is a blow to the compromise proposed by analyses the outcome. THE September regional elections were striking success for une FLNKS They won a majority of seats and votes in three of the four regions set rrencu minister Laurent Fabius. In the North they got 50.6 Loyalty Islands and 45.46 the in the Central Region They won 28.75 per cent or all voles cast. further 6.75 per cent voted tor a secona autonomis organisation, the LKS. Since the Kanaks form 43 per cent of the present population of the ritory, it is cle ciht at per Coul Melanesian people port independence and the FLNKS This result reinforces the evidence of the 34.43 per cent vote which the independence front won in 1979, mobilisations of November 1984. It clearly poses an eventual referendum on Kanak self-determination. This vicLOV can only add to the Kanak people's aelermination and constitutes a great encouragement anti-colonial struggle.
_re sellers came out in favour of the right-wing Republican fascist parties The National Front (the fascists) got 14 per cent south which includes the capital Noumea.
has stabilised which celestauce confront the independentists.
More than ever Caledonia is thus divided conomicaly politically, electorally geographically. The 60.84 cent achieved by the DCI anti-independence parties confined to white Noumea and a few white enclaves. The Kanaks have the majority except for the capital and vc Wilcie immediate dings.
This is what helped the FLNKS to establish a certain anticolonial relation of forces, despite the numerical inferiority of the Melanesian population, by means of the electotal boycott of November 1984 the boycott which followed.
The polarisation has swept away all those forces who backed the 'compromise ward by Edgard Pisani and coon bal.
Ine French This is the case with the LKS, which only got one deputy elected ana lne OPA, who got none. It is snub to Pisani wanted to construct a base This policy independence-withinassociation by assons or the FUNKS and LNKS and the Republican vote.
What rendered this Tone Sor was the naKanak people and the people scale of the conflicts, particularly in relation to unequal access to the land.
This removes the possibility, which Pisani had counted; that of europeans could be won to vote for his project in a referendum.
We haven't had to wait long for the first political effects OTI results The metropolitan right changed LUNC towards the FLNKS and the leader ot the RPR, Bernard Pons, for FLNKS participation in regional councils, plained that: If they villing to play ball, then s are we' This demagogic appeal is only designed to gain time. The French government will now try to recuperate the electoral ground won by the independentists in order to launch neo-colonial plans. In the long term, the government has not lost hope that it can break up the unity of the Kanak people around the demand indepenent socialist Kanaky. Many of the FLNK's action committees are aware of this danger and there is a long gap between Mitter rand's neo-colonial dreams and putting them into practice.
• This article is adapted from the French socialist paper, Rouge.
associated with American French troops confront Kanaks march Avigno
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French government envoy Edgard Pisani and a vic- tory for the Kanak people. VINCENT KERMEL