Ambassador Véronique Roger-Lacan meets Richard Balkonan and Gosiana Malili of the Melanesian Spaerhead Group Secretariat in Port Vila. 17 March 2025 Photo: X/@jeangene\_vilmer
The Nouméa-based French Ambassador for the Pacific has held talks with officials from the Port Vila-based Melanesian Spearhead Group (MSG) Secretariat in Vanuatu.
Véronique Roger-Lacan was in Vanuatu on a four-day visit, [which included a meeting with Vanuatu Prime Minister Jotham Napat](https://www.rnz.co.nz/international/pacific-news/545045/french-ambassador-for-the-pacific-makes-first-official-visit-to-vanuatu), and talks with a wide range of local political and business leaders on a wide range of Vanuatu-France cooperation fields, including education, culture and language.
Before flying back to Nouméa, the French diplomat said exchanges with the MSG Secretariat touched on "New Caledonia and its relationship with the MSG".
The MSG was critical of how France handled the third self-determination referendum in New Caledonia.
The sub-regional organisation founded in 1986 includes, as full member States, Vanuatu, Fiji, Solomon Islands, and Papua New Guinea.
The fifth member is not New Caledonia's government, but its pro-independence movement FLNKS (Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front).
Roger-Lacan's visit follows on the heals of talks between France's Ambassador in Vanuatu Jean-Baptiste Jeangène Vilmer and the country's new Minister for Trade Samson Samsen.
Vanuatu and New Caledonia are currently contemplating furthering steps to implement a free trade deal.
Jeangène Vilmer said a delegation of business leaders from New Caledonia was to visit Port Vila soon, in order to explore the potential for more business exchanges.
New Caledonia and Vanuatu are only 500 kilometres, and around 2000 Ni-Vanuatu live and work in New Caledonia.