New Caledonia: Le Pen advocates Marshall Plan to break institutional deadlock

Marine Le Pen , who has been in New Caledonia since Tuesday, called at a meeting in Noumea on Friday evening for the territory to be "rebuilt" through a "Marshall Plan," arguing that economic recovery should take precedence over institutional reforms.

"Institutional reforms have never filled the refrigerator," declared the leader of the National Rally (RN) in an offensive speech to several hundred people gathered in a Noumea hotel.

She criticized the "Valls method" and denounced "the government's blindness" in the management of the post-referendum process, following the three consultations on the accession to full sovereignty of this overseas territory in the South Pacific.

According to Marine Le Pen, the efforts of recent decades have been limited to buying social peace through subsidies without ever creating any real economic momentum. "We didn't give ourselves the means to do it. We bought civil peace. It didn't work," she chided, proposing a new agreement based on economic recovery and institutional stability, the only way she believes it can restore confidence.

Marine Le Pen outlined the main points of her recovery plan, which she called a "Marshall Plan for New Caledonia," which aims to boost growth and create jobs by building on the archipelago's strengths.

It includes strong support for the nickel industry, considered strategic for French and European industrial sovereignty, through significant energy investments, as well as diversification of the economy through agriculture.

She also discussed a growing French military presence in the Pacific with the installation of a joint military base with naval and air assets. "This is not a volcanic island lost in the middle of nowhere, it is a strategic territory in the heart of the Indo-Pacific," she insisted.

On the institutional level, Marine Le Pen said she was in favour of a new consultation on self-determination, but within a sufficiently long time horizon of 40 years.

This proposal provoked strong reactions from a large part of the audience. Earlier in the day, she had met with residents of Mont-Dore (south of Grande Terre), a town deeply affected by the insurrection. Marine Le Pen also had to face numerous insults from non-independence activists close to Sonia Backès, the leader of the most hardline anti-independence groups.

"Whether people like it or not, the separatists represent a significant portion of the population," she said, while lamenting the lack of a clearly expressed plan from either side. "I understand that a certain number believe there is no other solution than civil war. Well, I don't share your opinion," she concluded.