French archipelago of New Caledonia likely to have voted against independence

The French archipelago of New Caledonia in the South Pacific voted 59.5 per cent against independence from France in a referendum on Sunday, with two-thirds of the ballots counted, local TV station NC La 1ere reported on its website.

It said that the participation rate stood at 80.7 per cent. Full results were due from 1130 GMT onwards.

The referendum, the result of a 30-year long decolonisation process, is the first auto-determination vote to be held in a French territory since Djibouti in the Horn of Africa voted for independence in 1977.