The Rally (New Caledonia) The Rally (New Caledonia) The Rally (; until 2004 Rally for Caledonia in the Republic, ; from 2004 to 2014 Rally–UMP) is a conservative political party in New Caledonia, strongly supportive of the French status of the region; it is affiliated with the French party Les Republicains. In 1977, which saw the start of an outright nationalist movement on the left, anti-nationalist (loyalist) Caldoche leader Jacques Lafleur founded the Rally for Caledonia (RPC) which became the Rally for Caledonia in the Republic (RPCR) in 1978 following its affiliation with the Rally for the Republic (RPR) in France. The RPCR was
Geography of New Caledonia tree of the Austronesian languages to which the native languages of New Caledonia belong. The Lapita culture, hypothesized to have spoken proto-Oceanic, and defined by its typical style of pottery, originated to the northwest in the Bismarck Archipelago around 1500 BC. The earliest known human settlement of New Caledonia, dated to 1240 ±220 BC at the Tiwi rockshelter, is attributed to the Lapitans, who then moved on to Fiji by approximately 900 BC, whence the Polynesian expansion would begin. Western colonization of the area began in the 18th century. The British explorer James Cook sighted Grande Terre in 1774 and