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		</div><p>Voters in New Caledonia are voting on whether they want independence from France in a referendum that marks a milestone in a three-decade decolonisation effort.</p>
<p>More than 180,000 voters were invited to answer the question: “Do you want New Caledonia to gain full sovereignty and become independent?”</p>
<p>Polling stations opened at 8am local time and will close 10 hours later with results expected later on Sunday.</p>
<p>If voters choose independence, a transition period will immediately open so the archipelago in the South Pacific can get ready for its future status.</p>
<p>Otherwise, New Caledonia will remain a French territory.</p>
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<p>Two years ago, 56.4% of voters who participated in a similar referendum chose to keep ties with Paris instead of backing independence.</p>
<p>Both referendums are the final steps of a process that started 30 years ago after years of violence that pitched pro-independence Kanak activists against those willing to remain in France.</p>
<p>The archipelago now has 270,000 inhabitants, including both native Kanaks, who once suffered from strict segregation policies, and descendants of European colonisers.</p>
<p>New Caledonia became French in 1853 under Emperor Napoleon III — Napoleon’s nephew and heir — and was used for decades as a prison colony.</p>
<p>It became an overseas territory after the Second World War, with French citizenship granted to all Kanaks in 1957.</p>
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