ABSTRACT
It is reported that when Jean-Marie Tjibaou met with President Mitterrand in 1988, after the signing of the Matignon Accords on New Caledonia, he said, “We won because we were the weakest.” He had taken note of this aphorism during a visit to the écomusée du Larzac, where it was featured on panels celebrating the victory of 1981. By recalling it, he gave credit to the strategy of nonviolence and, at the same time, to his Larzac allies who had supported his cause since 1984. It was his way of expressing the legitimacy of the Kanak struggle against the power of the French state. As for Mitterrand, he is said to have replied, “Yes, you won because you were the weakest; but you also won because I am President.” Thus Mitterrand reaffirmed state power as well as his own legitimacy in the exercise of that power.
