New Caledonia

The Republic of New Caledonia, shortened regularly to New Caledonia, is a country in Oceania lying east of New Zealand and west of Vanuatu and Fiji. It is referred to as Kanaky on occasion by the indigenous population.

Initially inhabited by the related Kanak peoples, New Caledonia was claimed by France in the 1850s and heavily settled as a prison colony, mining centre and plantation hub. A significant wave of settlement following the discovery of nickel resulted in the growth of the region into a major southeastern colony, a status expanded by the arrival of refugees from French Indochina and Dutch Nusantara during World War II. The colony was granted independence in 1963.

New Caledonia is a democratic country with an elected president and legislature, universal suffrage and legislatively entrenched equal rights. However, the indigenous Kanak people, who make up nearly 40% of the population, have historically experienced lower standards of living and reduced prosperity compared to white inhabitants, and only in recent decades has the country begun a redress of grievances as part of a growing trend towards reconciliation and decolonization.

New Caledonia is one of the 25 most prosperous countries in the world by GDP per capita and is considered a fast-growing economy.

History
The history of New Caledonia diverges in the early 1800s with the arrival of American whalers on the Loyalty Islands and Grande Terre. These whalers set up informal whaling bases in the area, with some settling in and beginning to grow rice crops for themselves. Groups of Kanak people adopted the crop, triggering the beginnings of a population boom. More Kanak people in these areas survived childhood and lived to old age as a result of rice making it easier to feed a population.

French settlement of Australia largely ignored the smaller islands around the Pays-en-Bas. While Britain grabbed New Zealand, New Caledonia and the New Hebrides were largely neglected until the 1840s, when the French administration of Australia claimed the island in name to block British ambitions in the region. French activity only began in earnest around 1853, driven in large part by Napoleon III and rooted in Australia growing large enough that it had begun to shift from a prison colony to a settler and mining hub. By the time the French moved to make something of their claims on the island, they found the Kanak population significantly larger than OTL, with English and American missionaries already at work. The French established the city of Nouméa and seized the island in a series of skirmishes with the local tribes. Nickel was discovered in 1857, and the French moved to exploit the resource by setting up a mining colony, on top of plantations dealing in sandalwood and sugarcane.

Rather than exporting the indigenous people of the islands abroad, the French kept most Kanak people on the islands themselves, putting them to work in the nickel mines and on the plantations. Most of the voluntary colonists were initially administrators, Catholic missionaries and scientists; the permanent population mostly consisted of prisoners deported by Napoleon III's regime, many of them not actually ethnic French people. With New France effectively hostile to post-revolutionary France and Australia largely shifting to a model based on voluntary settlement and coulée labour, New Caledonia and the Kerguelen Islands became France's preferred penal colonies, with the former seen as more desirable and the latter as a death sentence. Among the prisoners shuttled to New Caledonia were thousands of Communards and thousands more Algerian rebels, none of whom were pardoned, forcing them to stay on the island and make lives for themselves. Combined with an influx of African and Asian mine labourers and French freedmen coming in of their own free will to seek work as mine foremen or merchant captains, the population of New Caledonia rapidly swelled. Epidemic diseases took their toll on the Kanak, though the decline was stemmed somewhat by the establishment of a Catholic mission hospital.

French control was harsh enough that a Kanak rebellion had to be put down in the 1870s. Another Kanak revolt occurred during World War I, this time earning the backing of a surprising number of settlers, mostly those who had intermarried with the locals - while the Kanaks had been herded off of some of the best land on the island, a reservation system was never set up, and they remained a present underclass in basically all parts of the island. A class of métis people had emerged, tending to be sympathetic to indigenous concerns and inclined towards independence. They found sympathetic ears among whites and their descendants sent to New Caledonia as political prisoners, leading the island to be seeded with more radical political movements than held favour in the more conservative metropole.

The island was largely administered as an appendage of Australia, considered an internal department of what was categorized as a sui generis overseas country, but New Caledonia diverged from Australia in that the natives had significant numerical parity in comparison to the Australian populace, which was dominated by settlers of various demographics. Further, New Caledonia experienced much lower rates of immigration from Asia and never developed the same coulée labour system, with most of the work done by Kanaks and prisoners. The Kanaks remained the largest single demographic bloc, with settlers more likely to be older-stock Europeans from France and a handful of allied or settled countries - the Algerians of the Pacific being a notable bloc.

In World War II, New Caledonia emerged as a major battleground in Thailand's push to encircle and seize New Zealand and Australia. The conflict saw thousands of French and Southeast Asian refugees from French Indochina flee to the islands, followed by a wave of Dutch people from the Dutch East Indies. Later, the United States moved tens of thousands of troops onto the island, while Albion and Australia also based thousands of men there. Many of these new arrivals never left, the refugees in particular, creating distinctive cultural clusters in New Caledonia with no particular loyalty to France. Many of these newcomers, while not friendly to the Thais, were nevertheless inspired by the wave of nationalism Thai propaganda inspired in Southeast Asia and southwest Oceania: Vietnamese refugees in particular arrived influenced by nationalist and anti-French rhetoric. A few New Caledonian troops were part of the CANCA detachments sent to Europe to assist with the liberation of metropolitan France from the Nazis.

In the wake of the war, the French overseas countries found themselves embroiled in fighting in Nusantara and Indochina even as the populace came to generally resent their perceived neglect by metropolitan France. To many in the Pacific pays, they had been the centre of Free French resistance, an importance many felt was overlooked by Charles de Gaulle and other allies in the nascent Fourth Republic. New Caledonia's concerns began to diverge, however: While the largely Asian-influenced population of Australia sympathized with the pro-independence factions in the Indochina War, New Caledonia's white population was divided on the issue, while Kanak activists staged strikes and riots in refusal to cooperate with what they saw as forcing one occupied nation to help continue occupying another. Kanak unrest was driven in large part by a new wave of cultural awakening sparked by their experiences with American, Alban and New Zealander military men, particularly their interactions with soldiers of colour who seemed to enjoy rights comparable to whites. The unrest rapidly evolved into violence driven by a demand for change in social conditions. More militant activists staged riots, took hostages and in one case seized a city in the north of Grande Terre, while moderates pushed for full citizen rights for the Kanaks. France was ill-equipped to respond, but eventually managed to bring in Albion and the United States to mediate a negotiated peace. The Dumbéa Agreement of 1953 provided for all residents of New Caledonia to be granted the right to vote and to be classified as citizens under the law.

Matters took a rapid swing in 1958 with the emergence of a new constitution promulgated by Charles de Gaulle, a reviled figure within the Pacific pays. All French colonies save Algeria were given the right to vote on the new constitution. Three - Guinea, Australia and New Caledonia - voted to reject it, though in New Caledonia the vote was very close. Guinea was instantly cut off from all French assistance and left to go its own way, but the politics around Australia and New Caledonia forced De Gaulle to pivot, agreeing to a transition period and claiming he was "granting the pays d'outre-mer the right to self-determination they earned through their valiant struggle in the World War." The initial arrangement called for New Caledonia to remain a state within Australia, but constitutional disputes emerged: Kanaks feared they would be marginalized by policies that continued to discriminate against Aboriginal Australians, while many whites feared they would be forgotten by the much larger continent. A 1959 referendum produced an overwhelming rejection of the First Federation constitution, setting New Caledonia on a path to independence.

For the first 15 years after independence, New Caledonia remained politically dominated by an alliance of right-wing pro-France parties and centrist moderates who tried to split the difference. The result of these conservative policies was worsening economic inequality, despite a massive nickel boom fuelling immigration and population growth. Ultimately a massive backlash occurred, driving new immigrants and some European moderates into the arms of leftist, pro-independence politicians. Amid a wave of rioting and protests, the 1978 elections delivered a victory for white-dominated parties in a vote marked by well-documented fraud and voter suppression. The pro-white government stepped down in the face of massive unrest, and the subsequent election was swept by parties from the Socialist National Liberation Front, delivering New Caledonia's first government dominated mainly by Kanak and mixed politicians. This government went on to end the compact of free association with France.

The turmoil of the 1970s and 1980s has seen the ethnic blocs in politics fragment, mainly on the settler side. With independence a done deal, it ceased to be the defining issue of politics, and white residents in particular began to diffuse across ideological lines based on more traditional liberal and conservative values. The Kanak cultural revival emerging from the '70s has led to a gradual whittling down of the once-vast ethno-economic gap between whites and non-whites. But the Kanaks remain a minority in their own homeland, and the grievances of the past have still left a legacy of wealth inequality and institutionalized prejudice that governments are addresing - some more fervently than others.

Geography, climate and environment
New Caledonia is an archipelagic state in the Southwestern Pacific, a little ways north of New Zealand and east of Australia. It forms part of the ancient supercontinent known as Gondwana. It's believed that the island broke off from Australia about 66 million years ago, reaching its present position 50 million years ago. Underlying New Caledonia and New Zealand is a continental fragment known as Zealandia, 93% of which has sunk beneath the Pacific Ocean. Researchers from New Caledonia were key in charting this drowned continent, which has been identified as the world's largest microcontinent.

The New Caledonian archipelago comprises islands covering 18,576 square kilometres of land within the Melanesia subregion. Key island groups include the main island of Grande Terre, the Loyalty Islands, the Belep archipelago, the Isle of Pines and a handful of outlying islands like the Chesterfield Islands. New Caledonia also claims the Hunter and Matthew Islands, a pair of rocks it disputes with Vanuatu.

Most of New Caledonia's landmass is taken up by Grande Terre. The island is divided between lush coastal plains and rugged interior mountains, rising to the high point of Mont Panié. Several rivers drain down from the mountains, the longest of them being the Diahot River in the island's northwest. Underlying the island is a massive supply of nickel. It's estimated that New Caledonia contains 10% of the world's nickel, and the extraction of this mineral forms a pillar of the island's economy, albeit one which threatens the unique ecosystem.

Flora and fauna
Like many islands in the South Pacific, New Caledonia is effectively a biological "Noah's Ark." Its isolation since the Cretaceous has given it an ecosystem rife with unique plants and animals, among them the kagu, a unique bird with no close relatives. The island chain is home to 13 of the 19 extant species of evergreen trees in the genus araucaria and hosts a number of basal flora, including being home to more gymnosperm plants than any other landmass. The archipelago is sometimes referred to as an honest-to-goodness Jurassic Park analogue.

New Caledonia's climate is tropical, albeit strongly moderated by oceanic currents and the trade winds. A hot and humid season prevails from November to March, driving temperatures up to 30 degrees Celsius. The cooler season runs from June to August, with temperatures dropping to around 20 to 23 degrees. The temperature divergence between seasons is not stark. New Caledonia is occasionally prone to being hit by tropical depressions and cyclones, and it's sometimes experienced dry periods as a result of El Niño.

New Caledonia's oceanic ecosystem is as diverse as its terrestrial one. The New Caledonia Barrier Reef is the second-largest coral reef in the world, and one of the few believed to be in very good health. The country has declared 100% of its coral reefs a protected area and instituted rigorous pollution controls, though they're vigilant against runoff from the mines and its effect on sea life. The reefs are a magnet for divers and form a central pillar of the country's eco-tourism industry.

Government and politics
New Caledonia is a democratic republic with universal voting rights, governed by an elected President and a unicameral legislature, the Congress of New Caledonia. The President serves as elected leader of the government, while the head of the Congress, the Speaker, serves as head of the legislature. New Caledonia's government was originally built along a strong-executive model centred on a President, a role strengthened due to close ties between earlier post-independence governments and French Gaullists. Reforms since the Crisis of 1978 have resulted in a transition to a weak-executive parliamentary model, with the Prime Minister holding a fusion of powers and the President playing a largely symbolic role.

While independence was traditionally a driver of political energy in New Caledonia, the country has mellowed since actually achieving it, and traditional ethnic political alliances have diffused somewhat. Nevertheless there is an ethnic divide in New Caledonian politics. Ethnic French people, Zoreilles in particular, tend to support conservative, pro-France parties, while Kanaks and nonwhite immigrants are the strongest supporters of leftist, social democratic parties. Some Caldoches have since drifted to the left, largely due to breakthroughs by left-wing parties with a non-ethnopolitical bent - the Union Nationale being the most triumphant example, encapsulating democratic socialist values from a universalist standpoint and toning down the militant language of groups like the Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front. The Crisis of 1978 further diffused the white vote by highlighting the anti-democratic lengths conservative forces in New Caledonia would go through to maintain power.

The Congress, elected by proportional representation, features 114 seats plus one more for the Speaker. The proportional representation system ensures that it's virtually impossible for any party to hold a majority on its own, so coalition-building is paramount in the New Caledonian system. The post-1978 reforms were aimed at devolving greater power to Parliament and removing the traditional right of veto held by the President.

The balance of power in Congress is currently held by the so-called Ligue démocratique, a bloc of centrist to centre-right parties dominated by the centrist l'Avenir ensemble.

Prime Minister
The post-1978 reforms devolved new powers to the Prime Minister, who acts in modern New Caledonia as the head of government and the most important public official. The Prime Minister is appointed by the President, but this appointment is only made with the consent of Parliament, and only Parliament can dismiss a Prime Minister. Only the Prime Minister can appoint and dismiss individual members of Cabinet.

The Prime Minister acts as an important gatekeeper and actuating authority on the powers of the Presidency. A counter-signature from the Prime Minister is required for most acts to become valid, including the appointment of judges and the exercising of pardons. The Prime Minister also has the power to appoint regional governors in New Caledonia's administrative divisions, as well as holding significant powers over civilian policing authorities and special services, a counterpoint to the Presidency's role as commander in chief of the military.

Presidency
Initially, presidents of New Caledonia held the lion's share of power. Since the post-1978 reforms, the presidency remains an elected office, but a number of presidential powers were stripped in the new constitution. The President has the power to nominate the Prime Minister, who must then be approved by Parliament.

The primary power the President holds over the Prime Minister is the ability to veto legislation. However, the National Assembly may override this with a three-fifths majority.

Economy
New Caledonia is one of the most economically prosperous and developed countries in Oceania, behind Australia and roughly tied with New Zealand in terms of per-capita gross domestic product. Historically this wealth has been heavily tied into resource extraction, dominated by the nickel, cobalt, chromium and manganese sectors. While this remains the case, New Caledonia has made enormous strides since the 1980s in diversifying its economy and developing sectors beyond mining.

The outcrop of ultrabasic rock underlying New Caledonia makes the islands rich in certain minerals. New Caledonia holds 10% of the world's nickel supply, and while nickel has diminished in modern times from its prior dominance of 90% of the island's economic activity, it remains a major sector. A secondary sector has emerged based heavily on extracting cobalt and chromium. Since independence, this sector of the economy has been bolstered by a growing manufacturing base, producing products such as electric guitar strings, stainless steel cutlery, processed foots and cosmetics.

Since the 1990s, services and tourism have emerged as major players in the economy, with services now making up the largest share of New Caledonia's GDP. Tourism is a particular economic driver, taking advantage of New Caledonia's balmy climate and unique ecosystems to market the country as "a real-life Jurassic Park."

While agriculture is restricted mainly to coastal plains and favourable inland valleys, a few cash crops are exported, mainly coconut oil and milk. Rice, yams, taro, plantains and fish are taken locally.

Historically, wealth in New Caledonia has been unequally distributed, with white Francophones holding significantly higher amounts of wealth than indigenous Kanaks. The wealth gap has narrowed in recent years, but Kanaks are nevertheless prone to earn less than whites, to own less valuable land (or to rent or live on reservations), to have less access to capital, to have higher levels of debt and to have less in savings. In accordance with this trend, the highest GDP in New Caledonia belongs to the populous South Province, where whites are most heavily represented.

Demographics
New Caledonia is a multi-ethnic country with no clear ethnic majority. Since independence, its demographics have undergone rapid changes associated with the liberalization of the country.

The largest demographic cohort in the country consists of indigenous Melanesian people, the Kanaks, who make up approximately 37% of the country's population base. At the time of colonization, the Kanaks were about as numerous as the Maori, and the legacy of blackbirding - bringing indigenous peoples from elsewhere to the islands - has helped to swell their numbers somewhat more, though the biggest factor was the arrival of Asian rice via American merchantmen prior to the French takeover. The ethnonym "Kanak" is an outside coinage, actually a Hawaiian term used to refer to the 30-odd related tribes inhabiting the archipelago, speaking mutually unintelligible New Caledonian languages. Despite full voting rights, Kanaks have been traditionally treated as an underclass and partially segregated from polite society. This has changed dramatically since the 1970s, to the point that New Caledonia has become a bilingual country and Kanaks are both equal under the law and well-represented in government, but inequalities remain: Kanaks are still over-represented in the criminal justice system, have less wealth on average and in general start out further behind in life than their white colonizers.

Ethnic French people form the second-largest cohort in New Caledonia, at about 33% of the population. For a time the French formed an absolute majority, but a large number of French nationals returned to France following World War II, when New Caledonia became a battleground in Thailand's push into Oceania. Broadly, the French are divided into two groups: The Caldoches are French people born in New Caledonia, while the Métros or Zoreilles are French people born in mainland France. Caldoches make up about 70% of the French population. In general, white French people enjoy the highest standard of living in New Caledonia, though things have begun to equalize after generations of colonialism and oppression. They form the plurality in the hyper-prosperous South Province.

Another 10% of the population consists of people of mixed-race background - specifically people of partial Kanak and settler descent. The name métis is typically used for these people, as it is in Albion.

The remaining 20% of the population consists of various immigrant groups, many of whom arrived after World War II. The three largest groups include Wallisians and Futunians, who tend to be politically allied with the Kanaks; Javanese people, many of whom brought Islam and Buddhism with them; and the so-called Algerians of the Pacific, the descendants of thousands of Arabo-Berber prisoners sent to New Caledonia after the Mokrani Revolt of the 1870s, who tend to concentrate in cities like Nessadiou and Bourail. American and Alban Anglophones also make up about 5% of the population, mostly descended from military men or support staff who arrived after World War II to seek prosperity in the nickel mines. The island also has a small population of Vietnamese people, many of whom descend from refugees from World War II-era French Indochina, and a minority of Afro-Caledonians, mostly descended from West Africans brought in to work on the sugarcane plantations in the early colonial period.

Religiously, New Caledonia is more than 75% Christian, with Roman Catholics forming a significant majority but with many Kanak and Wallisian and Futunian people following various small Protestant churches. Anglophones here also tend to be Protestant, with a handful being Anglican. Another 15% of the population follows no religion. Islam forms a significant minority religion, covering about 6% of the population - mostly Algerian New Caledonians and Javanese - while there are smaller communities of Buddhists and a handful of followers of traditional Kanak religions.