Transcript
It's a complicated but important issue and one that legal scholar Mathias Chauchat is watching closely.
"The problem is that a large part of the Kanak population is not enrolled. They represent 22,000 people out of 92000 - which is substantial."
The professor of Public Law at the University of New Caledonia is an expert on the legal and constitutional complexities which govern the French territory's electorate.
"The anti-independence side plays the equity card, saying everybody born in New Caledonia, irrespective of ethnicity, should be treated the same way. But that is not what is said in the Noumea Accord. The Noumea Accord provides for the Kanaks holding customary status to be all inscribed on the roll used for the referendum because it is after all a decolonisation vote which seemed logical."
To accommodate the peculiar situation in New Caledonia, France's constitution was changed and voting rights have been split, creating three different rolls, one specifically for the referendum.
If you want to vote in the referendum you have to be on the general roll first but many Kanaks aren't because after a century of being disenfranchised, many of them never bothered to enroll and engage in politics.
The Kanaks insist that France should enlist them automatically as they were given voting rights and customary status in the 1950s after years of forced labour and other restrictions under French colonial rule.
Now with a quarter of the potential Kanak voters outside the system, any referendum result could be tinged with a lack of legitimacy.
So in recent weeks, France has looked at the question of automatic enrollment and Mr Chauchat says the Supreme Administrative Court has found it could be done.
"If you enroll those born in New Caledonia on the general roll automatically, the Kanaks will automatically go on the roll for the referendum and they would have to make no declaration. Then there would finally be complete rolls in New Caledonia. On the other hand, the other people born in New Caledonia, who don't have customary status, including Kanaks who don't have customary status, would have to make a declaration to prove their material and moral interests."
At the beginning of November, the signatories to the Noumea Accord will have their last meeting in Paris and they'll have to determine who gets to vote in the referendum.
"I believe in Paris they will want to find a solution because there is a risk that the vote will be challenged. The paradox is that it has been known for almost 20 years that there will be a vote and one year out from the referendum there is still no agreement about the make-up of the roll. This shows a lack of preparation on part of the French state and that is why I think they will want to find a solution."
The Kanaks are planning another rally in Noumea next week to push for automatic enrolment.
No referendum date for independence has been set but it has to be held by November next year.
