This article uses my personal story to expose the sham of so-called decolonisation and provincial autonomy in Kanaky New Caledonia. The frustration and despair I and other Kanak have experienced in trying to obtain justice or legal protection from the customary institutions set up by the French government show that, 14 years after the Matignon Accords of 1988, Kanak remain colonised people. The Matignon Accords were signed between the French Government, the leader of the Kanak independence movement, and the leader of the main right-wing settler party. They were meant to put an end to the political violence over the question of independence that had caused so many deaths—mainly Kanak—during the 1980s. The Accords were supposed to fast-track the economic development of the Kanak people and increase local autonomy but they have done neither effectively.

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