16 May 2013

Temaru off to UN for French Polynesia decolonisation debate

3:15 pm on 16 May 2013

The outgoing French Polynesian president, Oscar Temaru, has flown to New York for the UN General Assembly debate of a resolution, seeking to reinscribe the territory on the UN decolonisation list.

The vote in New York in two days is poised to coincide with the planned election in Papeete of his successor, who is likely to be Gaston Flosse.

Mr Flosse, whose Tahoeraa Huiraatira Party triumphed in last week's territorial election, has reportedly written to the UN, asking the General Assembly to postpone the vote.

Last week, he said the first sitting of the newly elected assembly would adopt a resolution to ask France to intervene at the UN to stop the decolonisation bid.

France withdrew its Pacific territories from the UN list in 1947 but the UN returned New Caledonia to the list in 1986.