Repressive state plotting in S'Pacific

Azerbaijan supporting indigenous of Tahiti and New Caledonia against France

Tonga looks to be re-asserting its claim to ownership. See below

South Pacific history offers many stories of dangerously motivated carpetbaggers and non-state operators intruding into the region causing uproar, but nothing is quite as strange as that of Kanaky New Caledonia and Azerbaijan.

The capitals of Baku and Noumea are 13,800 kilometres apart and yet, as violence sweeps the French Pacific territory, French Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin says Azerbaijan is behind it:

‘This isn’t a fantasy,’ he said on French television. ‘I regret that some of the separatists have made a deal with Azerbaijan.’ 

The Baku connection could simply be an excuse as President Emmenual Macron’s dream of a French Indo-Pacific vision comes to the same crashing end as his African adventures are. Yet there is evidence that Azerbaijan, in anger at France, is fermenting trouble in French colonies; French Polynesia may be next.

Awkwardly Azerbaijan will later this year host this year’s COP29 climate talks and last week (as Noumea burned) Tongan Prime Minister Siaosi Sovaleni and recently sacked Foreign Minister Fekitamoeloa ‘Utoikamanu were in Baku. Quite why was not explained.