Papeete’S Mayor
p. 32 · Read in the full issue
Well
Received In Paris
M. Poroi’s Hurried Visit
ALTHOUGH, as reported in June PIM, the energetic Mayor of Papeete, M. Alfred Poroi, had gone off to Paris in an endeavour to secure clarification of some aspects of the political situation in Tahiti, he did not remain long abroad. , . , .
M Poroi arrived m Sydney by air late on July 2 and, after a hurried scramble through a list of engagements there, he left on July 3 for Papeete. Reason for haste: The opening the following week of Tahiti’s great Annual Fete, which vasts for a fortnight and is not missed by any Tahitian who can possibly get there.
Within the General Council or Parliament of Tahiti there now are two main parties—a majority oarty, of nationalist and Leftist tendencies, led by M. Pouvanaa a Gopa, and a minority party, more moderate in its views, led by M.
Poroi. The larger party lately has l : much more aggressive in its activities, and M. Poroi, resisting it, rently has been handicapped by uncertainty regarding the policy of the Government of France. (No Government, apart from the De partmental heads, has functioned in France for a considerable time.) The majority party, for example, has advocated an administrative reform under which Tahiti would become a Department of France, in stead of a semi-independent Ad ministration within the French Union. It also wishes to resist the plan for the stimulation of tourist traffic to French Oceania, prefer ring to keep the archipelagoes as a close preserve for the natives.
M. Poroi’s decision to go to France and seek clarification of the situa tion was logical. But he did not go alone. One of the leaders of the rival party, M. Ceran Jerusalemy.
Pouvanaa a Oopa’s lieutenant, also went to Paris, to put the opposite view to the high functionaries there.
M. Poroi told the PIM in his brief visit to Sydney that he was very kindly and helpfully received in Paris, and he returned with a con fident feeling that there would be no sudden changes likely to upset the administration or economy of French Oceania.
M. Poroi said that an important delegation from the French Parlia ment would visit New Caledonia in September, to attend that Ter ritory’s Centenary celebrations; and he had received an assurance that the delegation would try to make a formal visit to Tahiti before leav ing the Pacific.