Sui generis collectivity in the context of "Natural Park of the Coral Sea"

Nouméa (/nuːˈmeɪ.ə/ noo-MAY-uh, nyoo-, -⁠MEE-; French: [numea] ) is the capital and largest city of the French special collectivity of New Caledonia and is also the largest Francophone city in Oceania. It is situated on a peninsula in the south of New Caledonia's main island, Grande Terre, and is home to the majority of the island's European, Polynesian (Wallisians, Futunians, Tahitians), Indonesian, and Vietnamese populations, as well as many Melanesians, Ni-Vanuatu and indigenous Kanaks who work in one of the South Pacific's most industrialised cities. The city lies on a protected deepwater harbour that serves as the chief port for New Caledonia.

Nouméa was greatly affected by the 2024 New Caledonia riots, which destroyed many businesses throughout the city and its suburbs, and pushed thousands of people to leave the Greater Nouméa area and move either to the rest of New Caledonia or to Metropolitan France. As a result, the April 2025 census recorded a marked population decline for Nouméa, with only 173,814 inhabitants living in the metropolitan area of Greater Nouméa (French: agglomération du Grand Nouméa), down from 182,341 at the 2019 census, and 85,976 in the city (commune) of Nouméa proper, down from 94,285 at the 2019 census. This is the first time since the start of statistical records that Greater Nouméa, which covers the communes of Nouméa, Le Mont-Dore, Dumbéa and Païta, has experienced a population decline.

In May 2024, protests and riots broke out in New Caledonia, a sui generis collectivity of overseas France in the Pacific Ocean. The violent protests led to at least 13 deaths, the declaration of a state of emergency on 16 May, deployment of the French army, and the block of the social network TikTok.

Violence broke out following a controversial voting reform aiming to change existing conditions which prevent up to one-fifth of the population from voting in provincial elections. Following the Nouméa Accord, the electorate for local elections was restricted to pre-1998 residents of the islands and their descendants who have maintained continuous residence on the territory for at least 10 years. The system, which excludes migrants from European and Polynesian parts of France, including their adult children, had been judged acceptable in 2005 as part of a decolonisation process by the European Court of Human Rights given that it was a provisional measure. Voters in all three referendums were in favour of remaining part of France, though the 2021 referendum, conducted in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic, was boycotted by most independence supporters. For the French government, the referendums fulfilled the Nouméa Accord process, but independence advocates, who rejected the legitimacy of the boycotted 2021 referendum, considered the process defined by the Nouméa Accord to be still ongoing.