President Emmanuel Macron announced on Monday, January 19, 2026, an "Elysée-Oudinot" agreement reached between the state and several Caledonian political groups, without the involvement of the FLNKS. This document complements the Bougival agreement of July 12, 2025, without altering its institutional aspects, but by dedicating state financial support to the territory. The negotiations, launched on January 16, intensified over the weekend to conclude before Macron's departure for Davos.
Negotiations on the future of New Caledonia reached a conclusion on Monday, January 19, 2026, when Emmanuel Macron announced a new agreement before leaving Paris for the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Launched on Friday, January 16, at the Élysée, these talks aimed to clarify and complement the agreement signed on July 12, 2025, in Bougival (Yvelines), between the state, independentists, and non-independentists. The Bougival agreement provided for the creation of a State of New Caledonia inscribed in the French Constitution, with competencies to be organized later by a fundamental law and an organic law.
However, this arrangement had been rejected by the Front de libération kanak et socialiste (FLNKS), the main independentist party. The weekend discussions, supervised by the president's chief of staff, brought no significant institutional changes. Instead, the "Elysée-Oudinot" agreement—named after the Élysée and the Ministry of Overseas Territories on Rue Oudinot—focuses on the state's financial commitments to the territory.
Cosigned by the right-wing non-independentists (Rassemblement-Les Républicains et Loyalistes), centrists from Calédonie ensemble and Éveil Océanien, as well as moderate independentists from the Union nationale pour l’indépendance (UNI), the document reaffirms support for the Bougival agreement. "The partners have reaffirmed their support for the agreement, which constitutes the only credible and viable prospect to get New Caledonia out of the impasse," the text states. Macron had declared on Friday: "The objective is not to start from zero. Bougival is our flight domain. We continue to write history."
This compromise, reached without the FLNKS, could mark a step toward stabilizing the politics of the "Caillou," though tensions remain with radical independentists.
