French Pacific

French citizens living overseas territories can pay between two and five times as much to send a parcel as their counterparts in metropolitan France. Now trade unions want to put an end to what they see as yet another “injustice” suffered by those who live in far-flung parts of France. Julien Sartre reports.

The Pacific archipelago of New Caledonia and the South American territory of Guiana are both part of France. But in these remnants of the French colonial past, indigenous peoples suffer from violations and non-recognition of their human rights. France's human rights commission has now called on the country to recognise New Caledonia's Kanaks and Guiana's Native Americans as indigenous peoples and to grant them full rights, as laid out in the United Nations charter. Julien Sartre reports.