"More democratic" so that the French colonists can vote. Yeah, that sounds good.
> The independentist never wanted democracy
It doesn't matter what the independists want. They are the original owners of the land. Colonialism is illegitimate even if the locals want to set up a fascist, Islamist, monarchical or feudal system after throwing the colonists out of their country.
There's people who lived there all their life and can't vote because a bunch of racists decided that their life is worth less than themselves. No thanks, this isn't how any of it works in a modern country.
The independentist aren't better than the apartheid and if there's anything colonial left in there, it's the backward ethnic laws set up by the independentists.
> There's no colony, NC is a full part of France with the same rights as everywhere else
Yeaaah. With the same level of wealth/income for the locals of New Caledonia as the average French has in France, right...
Of course not. The locals are much poorer, they can only move to France as low cost labour if they can afford it and find a job. Whereas the French can easily go there and establish themselves as the ruling elite like they are doing.
These are asymmetrical relationships that implement the colonial setup through economic means.
NC isn't that bad compared to its peers, the territory is highly subsidised by France and had lower taxes as well to help development. The locals are all French anyways, there's no citizenship.
But that's true that there's some asymmetrical setups, the nickel mines would have died 20 years ago if it wasn't financed to keep the independentist happy. Not sure how long the French state is going to keep pouring money into that hole though.
The protest is against making the vote more democratic...
The independentist never wanted democracy and they are very clear about it