So Noumea has voted

against independence - for now?
The "unexpectedly tight" result is already predicted to be likely to cause further demands for "independence".
My late friend E.... spent a lot of time in Noumea. She was well aware of the "independence" movement there, thought it might happen eventually - and that it would be a mistake.
I know other people who think differently. My friend R..., a former Downunder Senator, would vote for independence. She  believes that the "Commonwealth" - that group of countries which were once part of the British Empire - is a waste of time and money and that it serves no purpose. It is one of the things we strongly disagree on. I don't care if the only thing the Commonwealth countries ever do is play sport with one another. The important thing for me is  that they are doing something together - and doing anything together brings about a better understanding of each other.
And it doesn't hurt the French to be responsible for some things in a far off place. They've used it. They can care for it. In reality Noumea is independent in most things. The economic "divide" in Noumea is not going to be erased by independence. It will almost certainly become much worse. 
E... kept going there - eleven times in all - and coming back. Each time she stayed about six or seven weeks, once for four months. It was long enough to get to know something about the place. It was her belief that there was nothing "unfair" about the economic divide, rather it had been created by different approaches to life.
    "Oh we have the mining and that will bring in an income," the independence side is saying in Noumea. But the mines will eventually run out and they won't have the same bargaining power. It will be "well you need the money to survive so we won't offer you a higher price".
Independence sounds good of course. "Let's  be all grown up and go it alone" is the message but it's the wrong message. Noumea is already grown up. It's supposed to be working in partnership with the rest of the family. 
When E... died I needed to contact people in Noumea. I needed to find a number of people. I wrote to the relevant authorities. I did it in French, not English. I had no response so I tried again...and then again. Eventually I got a response and with it came the understanding that some people were prepared to do their jobs conscientiously and others were not. Some people thought an inheritance even for a local indigenous family was of insufficient interest to respond and others thought it was important. Of course it may not be a reflection of the actual start of affairs but it raised questions in my mind. It doesn't help the economic divide if you have the power to change something and you choose to do nothing about it.