Azerbaijan’s tense relationship with France is taking a Pacific twist. Azerbaijani officials have long resented what they see as Paris’ strong support for Armenia in the struggle over the Nagorno-Karabakh territory. France now is complaining that Azerbaijan is trying to gain a measure of revenge by stirring up trouble in the French overseas territory of New Caledonia.
French President Emmanuel Macron departed May 21 for the island territory situated east of Australia, aiming to restore order following a week of rioting by the indigenous Kanak population. The trigger for unrest was proposed electoral reforms that would dilute the Kanak nationalist voting bloc. Referendums held in the last decade have shown rising support for the island’s independence from France.
After simmering for decades, Azerbaijan’s rancor over the Franco-Armenian special relationship started boiling over in 2023, amid Baku’s reconquest of Karabakh. Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev has sought to freeze France out of the ongoing Karabakh peace process. He also tried to tweak France in other ways: denouncing what he described as French neocolonialism, and encouraging the creation of the “Baku Initiative Group against French colonialism.” The group organized a conference in Turkey in February, titled Decolonization: Awakening of the Renaissance, that was attended by politicians from French territories.
In late 2023, a reporter for the state news agency Azertag was refused entry to New Caledonia, despite reportedly having a visa. In January, President Aliyev touched on the incident while offering broad criticism of the French government. “In general, what kind of mindset does it fit into? They suspected her [the reporter] of espionage. She was just there to cover events,” he said.
Such actions and statements are serving as the basis for the allegations coming out of Paris about Azerbaijani meddling in French colonial affairs.
French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin, in an interview broadcast by the television channel France 2, alleged that Azerbaijan was “interfering” in New Caledonia. “I regret that some of the Caledonian pro-independence leaders have made a deal with Azerbaijan,” he said. Protesters on the Pacific island have been spotted waving Azerbaijani flags. Other French politicians contend Azerbaijan has conducted a comprehensive disinformation campaign aimed at the island’s Kanak population and designed to whip up anger over French rule.
The Foreign Ministry in Baku has denied any involvement, calling the accusations baseless.
The Baku Initiative Group, however, issued a statement together with 14 other movements from French territories in support of Kanak grievances. France’s inglorious record as a colonial power, marked by debilitating wars in Vietnam and Algeria, helps make Paris an easy target on colonial matters.
“As a consequence of the persistent efforts of the French authority, based on the French colonialist doctrine that denies the right to self-determination of peoples under its control, the people of Kanaky [New Caledonia] find themselves engulfed in flames today,” the group statement read. It added that France was trampling on indigenous residents’ “inalienable right to self-determination by expanding the electorate illegally in order to marginalize Kanaks in their own country.”
