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This article focuses on the social trajectories of five New Caledonian political figures. These individuals were among the first Kanak students to access higher education in France in the 1970s. Upon returning to their homeland, they became influential political activists advocating for independence. Their influence on local institutions made them an elite in New Caledonia. To analyze their exceptional upward social trajectories, we need to “think by case” (Passeron, Revel, 2005) to understand how their social origins and a particular historical conjuncture made this possible. Their return to New Caledonia also saw the issue of education become an element of pro-independence demands and a feature of public debate at the end of the 1970s, in a context of increasingly violent confrontation between pro-independence campaigners and proponents of keeping New Caledonia in the French Republic. An examination of this historically significant moment provides insights into the rapid growth of student migration, which has now reached massive proportions.