15

On the basis of contesting or overcoming the nation-state, new forms of ‘accessory’citizenship have emerged or are emerging to the extent that holding this status supposes first and foremost that the primary status of French citizenship has been acquired and remains so. Yet, one can see that the two forms of accompanying citizenship provided for by law, that is citizenship of the European Union and citizenship of New Caledonia, are not equivalent. The first, which may be situated in a federalist discourse, allows citizens of the Union to enjoy supplementary rights, notably the right to vote and to stand in local elections of a member state in which he or she resides but does not possess the nationality; the second, which is part of a communitarian discourse, conflicts with French citizenship in that it deprives those French citizens who are not citizens of New Caledonia of political rights which they hold as a result of their French citizenship. In this way, therefore, accessory citizenship is contradictory in its object and its effect. If it is considered that citizenship, along with many other hazy notions, is both a ‘factor of unity’as well as a ‘vector of exclusion’, it is possible to retain, in the present context of overseas France, a form of integration via French citizenship and exclusion via the citizenship of New Caledonia.