New Caledonia's pro-France parties have emerged as the dominant force in the French Pacific territory's first provincial elections since 2019, winning a commanding majority in the populous South Province, but falling short of an outright majority in the territory's congress. Provisional results from Sunday's vote show the loyalist alliance Les Loyalistes-Le Rassemblement, led by outgoing South Province president Sonia Backes, capturing 50.14% of the southern vote and securing 28 of the province's 40 seats — a gain of eight seats compared with the last election. However, pro-independence parties retained their grip on the North Province and the Loyalty Islands, leaving the 54-seat congress without a clear majority and setting the stage for coalition negotiations beginning Monday.

New Caledonia, a Melanesian archipelago in the southwestern Pacific Ocean and a French overseas collectivity, has been at the centre of a prolonged debate over sovereignty for decades. The 2019 elections were followed by three referendums on independence in 2018, 2020, and 2021, all of which returned majorities for remaining part of France — though pro-independence groups boycotted the third vote, held during the Covid-19 pandemic. A negotiated framework known as the Bougival Accord, which proposed creating a Caledonian state and nationality while ruling out future independence referendums, was ultimately rejected by the main pro-independence movement, the FLNKS (Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front), contributing to the delay of these elections from their originally planned 2024 date.

The vote was held under heightened security, with approximately 2,400 law enforcement officers deployed across the archipelago until mid-July. The precaution reflects the shadow cast by deadly riots in May 2024, which killed 14 people and caused more than two billion euros in damage. Those riots were triggered by a then-proposed expansion of the electoral roll to include more recent non-Indigenous residents. A frozen electoral roll — restricting voting to residents established before 1998 and their descendants — had been a cornerstone of the landmark 1998 Nouméa Accord. A law passed this spring took a more cautious step, adding around 10,575 previously excluded native-born residents, expanding the eligible electorate from roughly 169,000 to about 192,500. Turnout reached 63.71%, slightly down from 66.50% in 2019.

With the seat count standing at 24 for loyalists, 18 for FLNKS and allies, and seven for a breakaway pro-independence faction at odds with the FLNKS, the balance of power rests with L'Éveil océanien, a so-called "third way" party representing the archipelago's approximately 22,000 Wallisian and Futunan community. The party, which holds four congress seats, has played kingmaker before: in 2019 its support first helped independentists take the congress and government, before a later alliance shift returned institutions to the loyalist camp. Backes hailed the results as "an unambiguous message on keeping Caledonia in the Republic," while negotiations over the territory's future are expected to resume in July, with French Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu aiming for a broader agreement before the year's end.