the staggering Champagne bill

Comrades,

God only can imagine the staggering Champagne bill in downtown Nouméa after the 48 hour public-drinking ban was lifted following the weekend's independence referendum. Oh man. Millions of euro's on the good stuff shipped in especially.

Tchin! Tchin! C'est mignon! Champagne corks flying through chic bars and across the bows of all that useless boatage in the Port Plaisance marina like it's New Years Eve! In a city that flies more French flags than Tricolours in Paris, the Caldoche would have been partying like there's no tomorrow.

Upcountry on their sprawling cattle ranches, they would have spent days rooting around in le caves finding themselves some choice vintage Château Lafite Rothschild to swill after quaffing all the Vintage Champagne Krug 1998, in grand celebration. C'est la France!!

THIS IS FRANCE, alright. Oh yes "voila! we want to given them independence, sure, but not just now", the Caldoche cry. There are dark clouds on the horizon. Yeah right. Yawn. Haven't we heard that one before?

It was very very cheeky of the kid President Macron to remind the Néo-Calédoniens that "we have kept our promise for 30 years" and then he repeated himself to emphasize the point in his address to the Republic.

Wot! 30 years! Oh, c'mon Emmaunel, you were barely out of short pants when the Matignon accords were signed with the clear intention of giving the French ample warming to sort out their affairs before the Elysee cut the purse strings and the Kanak took over. In '88, mate, the promise was that in '98 there would be a vote on the "transfer of sovereignty and full autonomy" to New Cal, and what did the Kanak get? The Nouméa Accord. 20 more years of shit.

The bloke who got Matignon together and polished that particular turd, Michel Rocard, died last year of old age it's been that long, and the Nouméa Accord was just another warning, this time, with 20 years notice if you hadn't heard the first time. Self-rule was coming to town and there would be an agonizingly slow electoral process chiseled in stone to finally achieve full self determination, three decades on...oh no, sorry, not now...in due course, but only if the Kanak put their guns away.

So, you had to be astonished by the absurdity of the typically French over-reaction on Sunday evening after a few of the local boys started chucking rocks at the local cops, and then dragged a stack of old tyres onto the main road out of Nouméa and set them ablaze with some gazoil and handy tree branches. The authorities responded with a fleet of armoured personnel carriers driven by honourable French tank men, led by one which had an armoured bulldozer attachment stuck on the front, and about 150 heavily armed gendarme in full combat gear toting fearsome looking shooters. But, by the time the French got to the "protest", the Kanak kids had well and truly scarpered, leaving the pile of rubber to burn, baby, burn. So laughable, so Frenchy. A random young Caldoche interviewed on the telly news said in English "they were just throwing a few stones, y'know, it happens all the time here".

The vote was closer than expected, phphh! we know that, but unlike previous proposals designed to obfuscate, at least this one was a sensible enough question in simple French:

An 80.63% turn out in 2018 was admirable and respectable, and so the Miracle of Democracy worked mighty fine there for the colonialists - for the moment. And don't they love their "moments" However, you better party on now, baby, because the local indigènes know where you live and they're coming to get all yr stuff. Just have a look at the map. You're hemmed in.

Back in May, on a "goodwill tour" of the colonies, Macron went to the site of the Ouvéa massacre out there on the Loyalty Islands, but did he say anything close to "je suis désolé". Oh, non, non, not on your Nelly. Laid a couple of wreaths and wore a silly garland on his head that made his idiot grin look even more childish. The land he was standing on is the thing in question, sonny boy, and he just didn't get it.

Never mind the UN "Committee of 24" getting involved, which they will, Kid Emmanuel don't understand that the Kanak have very long memories; way way before 1853. After being unconscionably rat-fucked for 165 years, another generation is neither here nor there in the grand scheme of things for the locals. Two more votes and four more years are in the glacial democratic pipeline - for Chrissake! - before the inevitable peaceful transition to true independence which is, as everybody knows, the only thing that will finish it.

I'm entirely certain I'm not alone when in exasperation, all I can do is cock my snoot in the direction of metropolitan France and say...Kanaky Pour La Kanak!