Details have been published in New Caledonia of this week's planned visit by the French prime minister, Jean-Marc Ayrault.
He will arrive on Friday from South Korea and spend two nights in New Caledonia before flying to Malaysia.
The programme includes a formal address to the territory's Congress and talks with representatives of key institutions in Noumea.
Mr Ayrault will also visit the Koniambo nickel plant in the northern province and the memorial site for the police killed in Ouvea.
His visit is the first by a French prime minister in three years and comes ahead of a meeting he will chair in Paris in October to review the 1998 Noumea Accord on greater autonomy, which is to enter its final phase next year.
Noumea's daily newspaper says the president of the territorial government, Harold Martin, will be away for family reasons while the newly formed anti-independence MPC party will hold its inaugural congress.
