Louis Mapou's departure hardly came as a shock. New Caledonia's first pro-independence president had himself said he was on borrowed time for several weeks. After Roch Wamytan was ousted from the presidency of Congress, the territory's assembly, on August 29, Mapou was toppled after less than four months, on Tuesday, December 24, following the resignation of Calédonie Ensemble government member Jérémie Katidjo Monnier (non-independist).

For weeks now, elected members of Congress and the government have been at loggerheads over the reconstruction of New Caledonia, with the center-right Calédonie Ensemble party leading the protest. The party's president, Philippe Gomès, had some harsh words about the conditions imposed by the Ministry of the Economy on aid for the territory's reconstruction: "Bercy [the Ministry of Economy's nickname] practices the Ottoman strangler technique, they come up from behind with a shoelace and choke you slowly." He had his eye on the billion euros in aid, granted in the form of a loan, which would "durably indebt future generations" and which comes with the obligation to adopt a whole series of tax reforms by the end of the year. "It's like giving a lethal injection to a dying man," asserted Gomès. "Louis Mapou decides on his own, forgets he is representing Congress and comes to us in mid-December saying: 'You vote for this, or there will be no state aid'."

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