Pierre-Yves Le Meur, anthropologist and research director at the Research Institute for Development, stationed in New Caledonia, discusses the political and social issues represented by the mining industry on the archipelago.
Is New Caledonia’s economy limited to the mining industry?
The archipelago remains very dependent on nickel. It has been mined for one hundred and fifty years. And, for many young people living in mining communities, the horizon is the mine. They know that they will work there, with decent salaries, sometimes forgetting to ask themselves the question of another future. It’s a formatting that also restricts them. The mining and metallurgical sector, which represents 20% of employment in New Caledonia, is not only an economic player, it is also a social and political issue. It has increasingly absorbed a Kanak workforce for several decades.
The mine has gradually given rise to long trajectories of Kanak wage labor since the 1960s, and the rebalancing policy resulting from political agreements has also played a role in this direction. The employment model has transformed. The Kanak workers concerned are today machine operators, employed in construction around the mines, they rehabilitate the sites after exploitation… Some are middle or senior managers with university training of two years or more. The sector has also become more feminized, with women making up, in certain places, 30% of employees.
The mines therefore gave rise to a Kanak bourgeoisie…
These communities entered the civic world at the same time – with the right to vote – and the market economy with the political liberalization of the 1950s or 1960s. We also witnessed a rise in the average level of diplomas, even if this -it was very slow. The first Kanak high school diploma dates from 1962, which says a lot about the colonial ironclad. In this regard, within the archipelago itself, we observe a gap between Grande Terre and the Loyalty Islands, which have undergone less brutal colonization and display higher average levels of training. The Kanaks of the Loyalty Islands are thus relatively over-represented among mining company executives.
The standard of living of the Kanak remains, on average, lower than that of other communities. Ethnic statistics show significant differences in poverty and median income, although there is also a less well-off white population. This median income in the mainly Kanak communes of the east coast only represents 40% of that of Nouméa. And socio-economic inequalities are, overall, much higher in New Caledonia than in mainland France.
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