ABSTRACT
This chapter investigates how in New Caledonia, a former settler colony undergoing decolonization, the social issue of violence against women within couples and families, which affects Kanak women more than other Caledonian women, has emerged as a public issue. After reviewing the extent of this violence and after examining the characteristics of feminicides which reveal very unequal gender norms, the text shows how forms of public action differ depending on whether they are initiated from a feminist perspective or from a familialist one. The analysis of the spectrum of political responses shows the weight of a backward familialism inherited from the missionaries and from their long history of hostility to divorce.
