It's a ghost with a “a bit of a kamikaze personality” that François Bayrou chose to resolve the humanitarian crisis in Mayotte and the political crisis in New Caledonia, as well as the economic problems in the majority of overseas territories. Manuel Valls was appointed Minister of State, Minister for Overseas Territories, on Monday December 23, six years after his last political mandate in France. The former socialist Prime Minister, also former Minister of the Interior, spoke out several times on overseas territories during his career, with varying degrees of success.
One or two sentences in his general policy speeches
During his two general policy speeches, in April and September 2014, Manuel Valls, then Prime Minister of François Hollande, only mentioned the Overseas Territories very briefly. In his first 47-minute speech, the Overseas Territories are only mentioned once, noted Guyana the 1st. “L“Overseas territories have a vital role – on all 5 continents – for our presence in the world.”declared Manuel Valls, on April 8, 2014, before the National Assembly.
It's barely more, five months later, on September 16, 2024, he only mentions the overseas territories twice in his second general policy declaration. “I am thinking of our overseas territories who are facing a difficult situation marked by the high cost of living, unemployment and housing problems. They can count on my Government for their economic and social development”he initially asserts. “Our mission […] it means allowing everywhere, in mainland France and overseas, or abroad, every French person, every child, every student, every employee, every retiree, to benefit concretely from progress.”he said later in his speech.
Reunion in the Pacific Ocean
A year earlier, on June 11, 2015, Manuel Valls traveled to Réunion, where he gave an interview in Réunion la 1ère. In one sentence, he makes a mistake in locating the island in the Pacific Ocean. “Reunion is the first department, it is the first overseas region, it has 800,000 inhabitants, it is a major place in the Pacific”then asserts the head of government. One of the two journalists opposite responds by correcting him, in the form of a question:“Since Reunion has a major place in the Indian Ocean, why not prefer the recruitment of Reunion Islanders?”
Specialist in New Caledonia
Returning to the National Assembly after the failure of the Socialist Party in the 2017 presidential election, Manuel Valls was appointed president of the parliamentary information mission on the institutional future of New Caledonia. He then traveled to Caillou in February 2018, a few months before the first referendum on the independence of the archipelago. There will be two more in 2020 and 2021. All of them end in a victory for the “no” to independence.
In May 2024, riots break out in New Caledonia, on the sidelines of the adoption in the National Assembly of a constitutional reform project which aims to expand the electorate in provincial elections. In all, 13 people were killed in these violent clashes. Just before, three former Prime Ministers were interviewed by the National Assembly on this subject. Édouard Philippe, Jean-Marc Ayrault and Manuel Valls all three believe that Matignon must take the Caledonian file in hand. “ The separatists have the memory of the link with this place where the great agreements of the past”, affirms Manuel Valls. He then recommends a prior adoption of the constitutional text, then a mission of dialogue with the Caledonians, evoking their “very great autonomy and a strong link with the metropolis“, speaking “of a precise timetable and date for a referendum on self-determination.
Manuel Valls questions Emmanuel Macron on the situation in New Caledonia, in an interview with Sunday newspaperon November 9. He asks the president to “rethink the future” of the archipelago, pointing out two priorities: “the restoration of security and economic reconstruction”. For the former Prime Minister, “Emmanuel Macron has destroyed 36 years of dialogue and progress and the method which owes so much to Michel Rocard”. He affirms that the responsibility of the head of state is “widely engaged” because of a “idiotic, irresponsible and criminal stubbornness”. Many Caledonian political figures welcomed his appointment to the Ministry of Overseas Territories, noting his expertise on their territory, reports Les Nouvelles calédoniennes.
Opposed to the abolition of land rights in Mayotte
The former socialist Prime Minister opposed the end of land rights in Mayotte proposed by Gérald Darmanin, then Minister of the Interior, in February. This proposal is “useless and dangerous” and will not be enough to “break the migratory phenomenon”estimates Manuel Valls. For him, she “is based on a fantasy, on the fact that our nationality law would be a breeze”, “the idea of making people believe […] that the law of the soil is responsible for the chaos which reigns in Mayotte”.
The constitutional bill was to be presented in July after being postponed for the first time, but was once again postponed with the dissolution of the National Assembly in June.
