France–Papua New Guinea relations France–Papua New Guinea relations France – Papua New Guinea relations refer to foreign relations between France and Papua New Guinea. Official diplomatic relations were established in 1976. France has an embassy in Port Moresby but Papua New Guinea has no diplomatic representation in France. Papua New Guinea's embassy in Brussels covers France. In 1768, French explorer Louis-Antoine de Bougainville landed at what is now Papua New Guinea during his circumnavigation of the world. He gave his name to an island just to the east of New Guinea. In the 1870s and 1880s, the Marquis de Rays, a French nobleman, attempted
Provinces of Papua New Guinea the PNG national parliament. The 22 provincial members are chosen from single-member electorates. Each provincial member becomes governor of their province unless they take a ministerial position, in which case the governorship passes to an open member of the province. Immediately before independence on 16 September 1975, Papua New Guinea was divided into nineteen provinces and the National Capital District. These provinces corresponded to the "Districts" of the pre-Independence administration of the Territory of Papua and New Guinea. It had been considered that an independent state with limited resources could ill afford the infrastructure of a two-level quasi-federal governmental structure.