• 3 See Poncet (1972: 226-227) and Henningham (1992: 179-180). 100% of the voters said “yes” to the i (...)

3Although these contemporary kings (hau in ‘Uvea, sau in Futuna) belong to a well-studied, diverse Polynesian political ensemble of kingships in the Pacific (Burrows, 1936, 1937; Sahlins, 1957; Sand, 1999; Favole, 2000b; Kirch, 2010; Chave-Dartoen, 2017; Graeber et Sahlins, 2017; Kirch, 2017), they seem somehow displaced in the French republican context. Wallis-and-Futuna is therefore always presented as an exception within the contemporary group of the Outre-mer français, the French overseas territories (Chave-Dartoen, 2002). The statut (status), signed in 1961 after a referendum held in 19593, recognizes the existence of monarchies within the French Republic: a kingdom in ‘Uvea, which is the autochthonous name of Wallis, and two kingdoms in Futuna, Alo and Sigave.

• 4 These seemingly well-ordered ceremonies should not obscure the constantly renegotiated tensions b (...)

4As a symbol of this unexpected and unique alliance of seemingly incompatible political regimes, July 14^th, a commemoration of the French Revolution and the end of the monarchy, is duly celebrated every year. In front of the Royal Palace in ‘Uvea, the préfet and the king (whose respective residences are next to each other) sit under the French flag, which is raised in the morning during a solemn ceremony presided by the préfet. Together, they participate in festivities including Polynesian dances and the traditional katoaga, which consists of the presentation of a considerable number of gifts, especially pork and yams (which is the work of the men) and mats (which is the work of the women). The king presides over the ceremony of the kava, as the customary practices stay entirely under the control of the indigenous population, but the préfet is nevertheless offered a cup4. With an eleven-hour time difference at that moment of the year, in metropolitan France, 20,000 km away, a military march is walking down the Champs-Elysées. Among these French troops, many soldiers actually come from Wallis-and-Futuna, or from the ‘Uvean and Futunian diaspora who settled in New Caledonia. Some of them proudly wear high military decorations. Their number is so significant in relation to the actual community that the French President, François Hollande, felt compelled to honor the memory of fallen soldiers from the ‘Uvean and Futunian ascent in the speech he gave to the Assemblée territoriale during his visit to the territory in February 2016 (Hollande, 2016). He also invited the kings to the celebration of July 14^th of the same year. In 1989, the newspaper Le Monde commented on the fact that, for the first time, the kings of Wallis-and-Futuna attended the July 14^th celebrations in Paris:

• 5 This is also the case in other Overseas territories.
• 6 Faka’uvea is spoken in ‘Uvea, Fakafutuna in Futuna. Both of these languages are still languages o (...)
• 7 The term “aristocracy” is certainly open to debate, but I am trying to give an account of the emi (...)

6And so, the kings of Wallis-and-Futuna remain in an uncertain place, sometimes feared and laughed at, but never really listened to as serious political interlocutors. Their legal position within the French state apparatus does not help in this situation. In almost fifteen years of ethnographic work in ‘Uvea and Futuna, none of the préfets I met (they usually stay for two years) resisted the temptation to assert themselves proudly, sometimes even in a minatory way: “Je suis le chef du territoire” (I am the chief of the territory). These words are an exact quotation from the status of 1961: “The senior administrator if the islands of Wallis and Futuna is the chief of the territory” (article 9). He (they have all been men up to now) holds the executive power alone, leaving the Assemblée territoriale and the customary chiefs to deliberate (when asked to) but not to take final decisions. It sounds as if this peculiarity of the position is the only thing that each new préfet knows for sure and that he can always rely on in case of conflict. Unlike préfets in metropolitan France, préfets in Wallis-and-Futuna also have to deal with diplomatic issues, as they are geographically isolated in a not only French regional environment – which probably adds to the importance of the function as envisioned by its bearers⁵. In Faka’uvea⁶, the préfet is still often referred to by the term kōvanā, which derives from the French term gouverneur (governor). This subtle lexical remnant of the colonial period does not appear to be entirely ineffective in grasping contemporary political realities. In a sense, we are dealing here with colonized aristocracies⁷ in (post-)colonial times, where no project of independence is explicitly supported by any political party or any identifiable social group, unlike in New Caledonia or French Polynesia. The hybrid political situation of Wallis-and-Futuna is therefore a case in point in the study of contemporary indigenous sovereignties, questioning the temporal meaning of the prefix post- in “postcolonial”. The emic perspective adds a difficulty in this terminological debate, as no colonization is supposed to have happened in the first place: a common autochthonous statement in the territory is “we have never been colonized,” which at first sounds like a denial of the colonial history as well as the coloniality of the contemporary relationship with the French state. However, I will argue that the autochthonous concept of sovereignty, which is based on belonging to the fenua, is seen as preserved and even flourishing as long as the state does not interfere in this relationship. The term fenua, found throughout the Polynesian area, refers to the placenta (Guiot, 2008: 108), which is, in Wallis-and-Futuna, still buried after the birth of a child, on the land of its ancestors. It conveys the meaning of home, of an organic relationship to the territory and its environment, where the sky, the land, the sea and the people are seen as a whole. I will follow Donaldson here:

• 9 A variant of this common statement is used in the title of Prinsen, Lotti & Worliczek (2022): “Wa (...)
• 10 For instance, I cannot comment here precisely on the political division in ‘Uvea. For a partial a (...)
• 11 As Barker (2005: 19) puts it: “Sovereignty as a discourse is unable to capture fully the indigeno (...)

7From this perspective, kings and chiefs in Wallis-and-Futuna certainly do not have “absolute power to govern”: they feel sovereign as long as the “continued cultural integrity” of their relationship with the fenua is maintained. In contemporary Wallis-and-Futuna, “colonized” refers to people who have lost their land rights – the Kanak expelled from their lands in New Caledonia are often cited as an example of colonized people. From this perspective, as long as their land remains under autochthonous control, ‘Uveans and Futunians can still understandably claim that they have not been “colonized”9. In the case of Wallis-and-Futuna, however, in the absence of an organized autonomist or independentist movement, autochthonous sovereignty is paradoxically limited to the narrow framework of the 1961 status. In this sense, contemporary autochthonous political positionalities, though diverse10, seem at first to be subsumed under what Bonilla (2015) calls the “non-sovereign politics” of the French overseas departments – she comments more specifically on the political situation in Guadeloupe, where administrative integration with the French Republic has been presented as “decolonization”. The imagining of a “non-sovereign future” is, in her words, “an attempt to break free from the epistemic bonds of political modernity, while still being compelled to think through its normative categories” (ibid.: 15). In the case of Wallis-and-Futuna, emic epistemologies of sovereignty do not seem to be precisely describable in these terms. The idea of not being sovereign sounds alien to the population, which acknowledges the persistence of kingship – while the territory’s limited political and legal status implies the normative superiority of another sovereignty, that of the French state. To paraphrase Bonilla, I will speak of ever-sovereign politics from an emic perspective in order to describe ethnographically this paradoxical idea of still being sovereign in a context obviously marked by coloniality11.

• 12 See for instance Moyse-Faurie (1997; 2016). The relation to the kings is an important marker of t (...)
• 13 See Angleviel (2004), telling about the request from Futunian chiefs to operate an administrative (...)

8I will use the hyphenated term “Wallis-and-Futuna” here to refer to the administrative entity governed by the French state. But in many ways, it is important to distinguish between ‘Uvea and Futuna: their language is not the same, their customs are also different12. Therefore, as much as possible, I will refer to ‘Uvea or Futuna, depending on the situation being described. It could be argued that the indifferent use of “Wallis-and-Futuna” is in fact a kind of methodological nationalism, in which the category of state comes to erase the real dynamics of the territories. The differences between the two islands are so numerous, and the Futunians’ complaints against ‘Uvea so frequent13, that the entity of “Wallis-and-Futuna” sometimes seems almost fictitious.

• 14 The history of colonization actually begins with the Tongan colonization of ‘Uvea in the 15^th cen (...)

9The first part of this paper examines the disruption of the customary framework in ‘Uvea and Futuna, that began with colonization14 and seems to culminate with the decision of the French state in 2016 to recognize an official king in ‘Uvea, while a second one had just been elected. The political division that affects ‘Uvea places this island in a fragile relationship with the State, the official king being considered as the “king of the French state”, while the other would embody an independent autochthony. The second section shows that the well-known narrative of “we have never been colonized” is also challenged by recent debates about the deep seabed and its mineral resources in Futuna. On this island, however, the consensus between the two kings against the exploration and exploitation of the deep sea led to a successful assertion of autochthonous sovereignty in 2018, which has at least the appearance of performativity to this day. The third section provides an ethnographic account of indigenous epistemologies of sovereignty, analyzing the ways in which ever-sovereign politics is navigated in everyday life, keeping the relationship with the State in a dynamic of constant renegotiation.

• 15 The limits of this paper do not allow to study further the constitution of an ‘Uvean and Futunia (...)

15This means that the autochthonous precolonial political organization has been recomposed within the republican framework, closely intertwined with French institutions. These (post-)colonial entanglements of political structures and relations could be seen as an achievement of autochthonous sovereignty, and they probably are in a sense. But even though some ‘Uveans and Futunians hold managerial positions, it should be noted that all the highest positions in the French administration (the préfet, his secrétaire général, the vice-recteur for education, the director of the hospital, etc.) are still held by metropolitan French, on two-year contracts that are usually renewable once. The same is true for medical doctors and an important part of the teaching staff in secondary schools. In this sense, the old autochthonous social and political order still persists, while the system as a whole is undoubtedly controlled by the French state. One could therefore speak of a significant participation of the aliki part of the population in the French institution rather than of a kind of autochthonous sovereignty that would be established solely by the non-exclusion of some autochthonous individuals from the State administration15.

• 16 See Mayer et al. (2006) and Iloai (2009).

18The memory of colonial history as a whole, however, seems to have been erased and replaced by an idealized narrative of consensual, peaceful consent to become first Catholic and then French. The colonial history of autochthonous resistance, although attested, also seems to have been forgotten. Since it is still not taught in schools, the history of coloniality in general is largely unknown to the general population, being the shared knowledge of a few scholars, all Europeans. The stories that are known to the population and taught in schools concern the Tongan colonization and presence in ‘Uvea in the 15^th and 16^th centuries (the war of Molihina, the legend of Mālama Tagata16). They are oral literature and are taught as such, without much historical contextualization.

• 17 I quote this book under the reference Drouet-Manufekai et al. (2009).
• 18 “In 1922, the interesting report of the colonial inspector Revel […] recommended as well the fis (...)

19A very interesting exception is the anthology Tavaka lanu ‘imoana. Mémoires de voyages, published by the Agence de développement de la culture kanak (adck) in New Caledonia in 2009, which served as the basis for an exhibition at the Centre Tjibaou in Noumea. The contributors are of ‘Uvean or Futunian descent, none of them a professional scholar17. Focusing on the seafaring skills of the Oceanians and exploring the contacts between ‘Uvea and Ouvea in the Loyalty Islands, the authors examine with great care the colonial history of ‘Uvea and Futuna, devoting long pages to the forced “exiles” or “deportations” of chiefs who were “hostile” to the French state or who refused to pay taxes, especially in the 1930s (Franck Simete Fulilagi in Drouet-Manufekai et al., 2009: 58). Similarly, they describe the exportation of troca that took place in ‘Uvea from 1916 to the 1950s as a pillage sans scrupules (“unscrupulous looting”)18. This Oceanian, politicized gaze is certainly new in the narrative of the history of the territory and adds an indigenous, non-academic perspective to the descriptions of colonialism by European scholars (Roux, 1991; Favole, 2000b). It is probably no coincidence that this work is the initiative of Wallisians and Futunians living in New Caledonia, a territory where public debate on the coloniality of French state power is both pervasive and divisive.

• 19 ‘Uvea is divided in three parts, Hihifo in the North, Hahake in the center, Mu’a in the South. A (...)

21Late one evening in February 2016, in a village of ‘Uvea, a few days after the visit of President François Hollande to Wallis-and-Futuna, I met an aliki who was returning to his home. As I wished him well and was about to leave, he told me in a low voice: “I think we have elected a king”. After years of political crisis that began in 2005, and a vacant throne in ‘Uvea since 2014, this sounded like great news. I promised not to tell, and congratulated him and his clan (see note 7 supra) for participating in these fruitful debates. He added with a smile: “He will be from the north this time,” which was probably a way of pleasing me, since I am identified as being from that district, and certainly a way of proving that the political situation was truly being renewed – the last two kings were both from the central district19. In the weeks that followed, this became a serious topic of discussion on the island, as well as among the diaspora in New Caledonia. Some people there were already talking about buying plane tickets to ‘Uvea to attend the intronization ceremony. I was scheduled to return to metropolitan France at the end of March, and for a while I hoped that I would be able to attend this important political moment in person. But the time of my departure came and the ceremony had still not taken place. It was disappointing, of course, but I expected it, knowing that the customary time is unpredictable and protracted, that negotiations are intense, and that any nomination is vulnerable to challenge by clans who feel that their voice has not been properly heard. What I could not imagine at the time, however, was that a day before the scheduled intronization ceremony in mid-April, a second king would be elected in an emergency by political opponents, and that the French state would declare him the only official king of ‘Uvea. Patalione Kanimoa became the new Lavelua (which is the ‘Uvean royal title) and was intronized in the royal palace in Sagato Soane, next to the residence of the préfet. The other, Tomeniko Halagahu, who was prevented from being installed, had chosen to be intronized in his own home, in the North, a violation of custom that caused quite a scandal in the eyes of many. On June 1^st, 2016, the préfet Marcel Renouf declared on local television:

• 20 See Le Meur, Muni Toke & Cochonat (2019); Le Meur & Muni Toke (2021); Le Meur & Muni Toke (2022) (...)

23The idea of indigenous sovereignty in Wallis and Futuna is closely linked to the idea of belonging to a fenua, and thus to land tenure issues. As long as these are administered by customary authorities, indigenous sovereignty is not seen as threatened, even though local political life is heavily influenced by the organization and authority of the French state. From this perspective, the discovery of mineral resources in the deep seabed near Futuna certainly changes the perception of non-threatened indigenous sovereignty. A public crisis emerged in 2018 when the population was finally informed about the state’s activities regarding the deep seabed²⁰, positioning the territory within the international rush for deep-sea mining (Tilot et al., 2021; Childs, 2022).

• 21 It would probably be more accurate to use the metaphor of informed consent rather than the term “ (...)

24Following geological explorations in the 1990s (Fouquet et al., 1993), three oceanographic campaigns were organized by the French state in 2010, 2011 and 2012. The French research institute Ifremer and the private mining companies Areva and Eramet were involved. Their presence made it very clear that the objective of these explorations was to evaluate the metal resources that could be provided by the hydrothermal vents in this region. As authorized by law, the préfets, from 2009 (when the oceanographic campaigns were prepared in Metropolitan France) to 2018 (when an information mission was organized by my research institute, the ird, in response to a request for scientific experts made by the Assemblée territoriale in 2016), never informed the kings, the local chiefs, or even the Assemblée territoriale. The oceanographic campaigns were carried out without the knowledge21 of anyone in the territory, except the préfets. The crisis started in 2014 when the State asked the Assemblée territoriale to modify the mining code in order to grant exploration permits to private companies. The Assemblée territoriale’s refusal (to this day) to modify the code, despite numerous pressures from the State (including the visit of President Hollande), marks a new turn in the relationship with the State and a strengthening of autochthonous positions, especially in ‘Uvea, where the supporters of the non-official king see him as a true practitioner of custom, while the official king would be a traitor who conspires with the State (although he is not more involved than the other in the processes of decision-making on this subject).

• 22 This was not a public declaration but an informal discussion he accepted to have with me and my (...)

28This autochthonous positioning is often used in the discourses of the chiefs. In 2018, the official king in ‘Uvea even defined himself as a “guardian of the Ocean” 22, thus joining the now widely internationalized image of the autochthonous people as being at the forefront of environmental protection (Löwy, 2022). However, it should not be interpreted in a strictly environmentalist sense. Autochthonous sovereignty is about controlling the space of the fenua, and while the public declarations of the customary chiefs on deep-sea mining are all about protecting the environment, in private many dissonant voices express the fear of being deprived of an economic resource by the state and private companies. In this sense, the opposition to the exploitation of the ocean is first and foremost a question of indigenous sovereignty, and not just a (sincere, albeit nuanced) concern for the environment.

• 23 The people from metropolitan France count for approximately 10% of the total population.

31The masculine, warrior codes are obviously mobilized here, as if the ability to behave like an autocrat were the right therapeutic stance – the ‘Uveans are supposed to “evolve better like their ancestors” in this conflictual relationship. For many European men, coming to Wallis and Futuna seems to involve a brutal confrontation with an autochthonous masculinity closely linked to power and sovereignty. To be recognized as strong, fearless, is an end in itself, a proof of adaptation to the indigenous life of the territory. This “Western” view is interesting because it reflects what autochthonous sovereignty looks like in everyday life, in the eyes of the minority of Europeans who live in the territory for a short time23: a confrontation.

• 24 The same idea is used in the precedently quoted declaration of Sa’atula Kaikilekofe, see supra.

32In 2017, the “Code de la route” (French traffic law) was finally applied on the territory of Wallis and Futuna. This meant, in particular, the obligation to wear a safety belt when driving and to wear a helmet when riding a motorcycle. In a place where it is not even considered necessary to have a driver’s license, and where it is common to see three people on one scooter, this new legislation was immediately rejected as an unforgivable violation of indigenous freedom. A less pleasant side of things, of course, was the high number of fatal traffic accidents (as doctors at the hospital told me at the time, worried about the fact that they were not equipped to deal with most of the traumatic cases, which is still true), but it is not from a public health perspective that this issue was construed at the time (Gusfield, 1984). The customary chiefs intervened in the public debate, telling local television that the population should refuse to pay the fines because the roads were under customary jurisdiction and therefore outside the gendarmerie’s scope of action. As a result, I was able to see many people in court, all summoned for overdue payments, claiming that they honestly thought they did not have to pay because the chiefs had decided that the laws were unfounded. Since the usual argument was about sovereignty over the land, and since the common belief is that the land is inalienable, the people believed that the state would abandon the lawsuits. But the metropolitan judge and the ‘Uvean prosecutor did not give in: the people had to pay. This moment in the judicial life of the territory provoked heated debates, mostly on the theme that “laws from Paris24” were incapable of grasping the reality of autochthonous life.

• 25 The final exclamation in French is “On est chez nous !”

33If people are now used to being fined for not wearing a seat belt, the whole idea of being controlled by the gendarmerie remains problematic. Over the years, I have met many people who have proudly told me how they had expelled the gendarmes from their “property”, arguing that no state vehicle is allowed to park on the side of the road, as these are all under customary jurisdiction – as the chiefs reminded us in 2017. In all these narratives, the gendarmes never insist and find another place to park for their controls. The Covid crisis in 2020 gave other occasions for confrontation between the gendarmes and the indigenous population. In ‘Uvea, some families decided to move to the islets (motu) when they were asked to stay at home. This is actually a reminder of one of the old uses of the islets of the ‘Uvea lagoon, since one of them was once used to isolate leprosy patients. For these families, it was perfectly normal to move there, in the huts they had built. Today, the islets are a favorite vacation spot and are used mostly on weekends. Nevertheless, this idea seemed to the French administration to be against the rules of containment: gendarmes were placed on a boat in charge of controlling the circulation on the lagoon. Some people were fined for being found living on an islet. One of them told me in 2022: “This is desperate. They still don’t understand how the land works here. We are at home!25”

• 26 See Muni Toke (2023) for an account of the reception of health public policies regarding “obesit (...)

36On both islands, however, the anti-Covid vaccine provoked defiance and fear. The fact that the official king in ‘Uvea was photographed receiving an injection had the expected consequence: the supporters of the unofficial king rejected the vaccine as a “State” trap. To this day, it is difficult to discuss this issue on the island. As in other French overseas territories, the State is still associated with health scandals (see the nuclear consequences in French Polynesia or the chlordecone in the Caribbean islands) and any public health policy is initially considered with defiance. In this sense, indigenous sovereignty is also about the indigenous body: as an extension of the fenua, it must be protected as such - along indigenous epistemologies that defy the rules seen as imposed by the State26.

• 27 This line of work is ongoing, as a regional platform on the deep seabed has been organized by ir (...)

40How are these recent Oceanian positions compatible with the general idea of Oceanian sovereignty that is commonly used by scholars? The case of Wallis-and-Futuna may be of particular interest in studying these recent developments regarding the Pacific and its dialogue with international and supranational authorities. By claiming a kind of eternal sovereignty, even if the relationship with the state is obviously marked by coloniality and misunderstandings, the kings and chiefs of ‘Uvea and Futuna show that what they value most is their exclusive, genealogical relationship with the fenua and its resources. Their position on deep-sea mining can be seen as ambiguous: their opposition may be essentially environmentalist, but it can also be heard as an assertion of autochthonous sovereignty over the resources – that is, a freedom of choice. In this sense, asking them how they make sense of Nauru’s choice for the future would be an important step in documenting contemporary Oceanian epistemologies of sovereignty27. Using Nauru as an example, the discussion of indigenous sovereignty also invites us to take into account both the sovereignty of the states on which territories like ‘Uvea and Futuna depend, and the power and profit motives of the industrial complexes interested in exploiting the Pacific seabed, which could in itself constitute a kind of sovereignty claim (Sassen, 1996; Hansen & Stepputat, 2006).