Economy of Wallis and Futuna

About four-fifths of the population of Wallis and Futuna engages in subsistence farming, growing yams, taros, bananas, and other food crops. Some livestock is raised (mostly pigs). The notion of selling produce from the land is contrary to traditional custom, wherein items are bartered and not sold. Similarly, fish are caught mostly to satisfy the immediate needs of family, near kin, and neighbours. Most fish are taken in sheltered areas within the fringing reef, and little fishing is done in the open sea.

Wallis and Futuna is truly resource-poor, and very little revenue is earned from exports. Revenues come from French government subsidies, licensing of fishing rights to Japanese and South Korean companies, import taxes, and remittances from expatriate workers in New Caledonia. Exports include small amounts of breadfruit, yams, and taros, along with trochus shells. Vietnam, New Caledonia, Italy, and Japan are the major recipients. Imports, which come mainly from France and Australia, include food products, electrical machinery, road vehicles, and building and public works supplies.

Uvea is more developed than Futuna. The French administration is located on Uvea, and that island has the better infrastructure. Its roads and public services are superior, and most households have running water and electricity. The government is the island’s largest single employer. In contrast, Futuna is somewhat isolated; there is only a partially surfaced road circling the island; and administrative positions are scarce. Wallis and Futuna attracts a limited amount of tourism.

There is an international airport at Hihifo, northern Uvea, that is linked to French Polynesia and New Caledonia. Flights operate between Uvea and Futuna islands. A cargo vessel travels between the islands and Nouméa, New Caledonia, about a dozen times a year.

Government and society

Wallis and Futuna is an overseas collectivity of France divided into three districts that correspond to three traditional political divisions, or kingdoms (more accurately, paramount chieftaincies). One kingdom (Wallis) includes all of Uvea, and the other two divide the island of Futuna (in the northwest, Sigave, and in the southeast, Alo, which also includes the island of Alofi). A French-appointed chief administrator (administrateur supérieur) is the chief executive officer of the territory and serves as the president of the Territorial Council. The council includes the three kings and three others appointed by the president with the approval of the legislature, the Territorial Assembly. The council decides on matters of general policy.

The Territorial Assembly consists of 20 members (13 from Uvea and seven from Futuna) elected for five-year terms by universal suffrage. The chief administrator has fairly broad veto powers over actions of the Assembly. As an integral part of France, Wallis and Futuna elects local representatives to the French Senate and National Assembly.

Primary schools in Wallis and Futuna are operated by a Roman Catholic mission and by the state; the state has sole responsibility for secondary education. Both primary and lower-secondary schools are tuition-free. Higher-level education must be pursued in New Caledonia and metropolitan France. Free health services are available at hospitals on both Uvea and Futuna islands.

History

The earliest inhabitants in Wallis and Futuna were people of the Lapita culture, who had reached the islands by at least 800 bce. Archaeological evidence indicates that the people engaged in agriculture and fishing. Later waves of other Polynesian sailors reached the islands about 1400 ce: Samoans settled on Futuna, and Tongans on Uvea.

The three kingdoms of Uvea, Alo, and Sigave were in place when the islands of Wallis and Futuna were first encountered by Europeans in the 17th century. The Dutch explorers Jakob Le Maire and Willem Schouten sighted Futuna in 1616 during the early voyages of exploration in the Pacific. A lapse of 151 years occurred before Capt. Samuel Wallis encountered Uvea in 1767. There was another lapse of more than 50 years before the whaling industry reached the area in the 1820s, and Europeans began to make regular calls at both islands.

French Marist priests arrived as missionaries in the 1830s. They achieved considerable success within a decade and have remained an important force in the politics of the island group. Protestants never mounted a serious challenge, and the inhabitants of the islands were spared the religious conflicts that were common elsewhere in the Pacific.

As early as the 1840s, the islanders petitioned for French protection, but France was slow to respond; the Wallis Islands became a French protectorate in 1887, and Futuna did so in the following year. Over the next five decades, the French administration became well-entrenched and ruled the colony with a relatively firm hand.

In 1942, during World War II, the Allies based 6,000 troops on Uvea, and within a short time they built a system of roads, two landing strips, and anchoring facilities in the lagoon. These developments still form the basis of the island’s infrastructure.

In 1959 the islanders elected to become an overseas territory of France. Historically, the people of Wallis and Futuna have demonstrated conservatism, opposing proposals for a change in their dependent status.

In 1998 a typhoon (tropical cyclone) destroyed most of the cultivated crops on Uvea, including the island’s banana plantations; recovery was aided by a grant from France. The 1998 Nouméa Accord, which increased New Caledonia’s autonomy from France, led to discussions regarding the future status of Wallis and Futuna’s large community of expatriates in New Caledonia; the accord had given New Caledonia the power to control immigration from Wallis and Futuna in exchange for providing economic aid. In 2003 the two governments concluded a bilateral agreement that redefined their relations under the Nouméa Accord, including provisions for regular discussions regarding issues affecting the expatriates.

There was instability in the three kingdoms in the early 21st century. The king of Sigave was deposed by members of his clan in 2003 and was not succeeded until five months later. Several years later the other two kingdoms were, for a time, simultaneously leaderless: the king of Wallis, Tomasi Kulimoetoke, died in 2007 after a 48-year reign, and the throne remained empty until July 2008; and in February 2008 the king of Alo, after having reigned only five years, was deposed by the kingdom’s chiefly clans amid criticism of his leadership style.

Conflicts over the islands’ leadership continued. The king of Wallis was removed in 2014, and the throne remained vacant for two years. In April 2016 conflict arose among the royal families regarding the choice of a new king, Tominiko Halagahu, who had been selected by chiefs of Wallis. Rival members, who believed the choice should have been theirs, installed Patalione Kanimoa two days after the first king’s coronation, and two monarchs ruled in opposition while a solution to the situation was sought.