Committee of signatories of the Nouméa Accord : a political agreement is important for the electoral lists

MIL OSI Translation. Government of the Republic of France statements from English to French –

The Prime Minister presided, on 2 November, assisted by the Minister of Overseas, Annick Girardin, the 16th Committee of Signatories of the Noumea Agreement.

The Committee of Signatories has resulted in an important political agreement between the partners of the Nouméa Agreement concerning voter lists, prior to a consultation "loyal and undeniable" the Prime Minister said. The agreement paves the way for the final settlement of the question of the automatic registration on the electoral list of the consultation (which currently has 158,000 voters) of about 11,000 natives, residing in New Caledonia, which does not were not there so far. About 7000 of them fall under the customary civil status, and 4000 of the civil status of common law. The agreement also provides for the extension of the work undertaken with the United Nations General Secretariat within the framework of the electoral commissions. In addition, the partners agreed that a UN expert mission would be solicited during the consultation process to verify the smooth running of the mission. This agreement, obtained after nine hours of discussion, will thus ensure the legitimacy and sincerity of the ballot. It demonstrates the commitment of the Prime Minister and the Government, alongside the Caledonians, to carry out this "unique, complicated, risky process" initiated 20 years ago by courageous men who "dared to shake hands , (…) discuss, (…) break with the traditional canons of French constitutional law and French public law to imagine new solutions "recalled Édouard Philippe. Issues related to the organization of the consultation, including the wording of the question asked, were referred to a working group to review them before a future meeting of the Signatories Committee next spring. The Prime Minister will visit New Caledonia in late November, and the President of the Republic by May 2018.

Sixteenth Committee of Signatories of the Noumea Agreement

The 16th Committee of Signatories of the Noumea Agreement was devoted to the issue of the special electoral roll for consultation on the accession of New Caledonia to full sovereignty in 2018.

The Nouméa Accord provides that the list of electors for the referendum is narrower than the general list of electors. One issue raised was the possibility of automatically registering different categories of voters on this special list. The agreement reached on November 2 paves the way for their automatic registration.

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