PAPEETE (Oceania Flash) — French Polynesia’s new President Gaston Tong Sang, who was elected on Boxing Day, is scheduled to meet French President Jacques Chirac next week as part of his first overseas visit in a bid to normalize relations with Paris.
Tong Sang, who heads a pro-French platform in French Polynesia’s local legislative assembly, told reporters on Tuesday that he would meet Chirac on Tuesday next week.
Encounters between the French head of state — who is also a close friend of Tong Sang’s Tahoeraa Huiraatira party founding leader and long-time ruler Gaston Flosse — and Tong Sang’s predecessor, pro-independence Oscar Temaru, have never taken place during his term, between March 2005 and Dec. 13, 2006.
Temaru was ousted in a vote of no confidence supported by a narrow majority of MPs who said, among other things, that they disapproved of Temaru’s anti-French stance.
During his visit in France, beginning this weekend, Tong Sang is also scheduled to attend France’s ruling UMP party congress, which is widely tipped to officially endorse current party leader and Home Affairs Minister Nicolas Sarkozy as a candidate for France’s May presidential elections.
Tong Sang will also meet French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin to discuss a few sensitive issues, like delays in French assistance packages.
Another probable issue will be a possible reform of French Polynesia’s electoral system, which has been widely criticized as of late for not being able to provide for sufficiently clear majority within the local 57-member House.
During the recent political crisis in French Polynesia that saw Temaru being toppled, several senior politicians have even called for dissolution of the Assembly, fresh elections and an in-depth reform of the electoral system, which was introduced early 2004, only weeks ahead of a general election.