Politics of the Collectivity of Saint Martin Politics of the Collectivity of Saint Martin Saint Martin was a French commune for many years and formed part of Guadeloupe, which is an overseas "région" and "département" of France and is therefore in the European Union. In 2003, the population of the French part of the island voted in favour of secession from Guadeloupe in order to form a separate overseas collectivity (COM) of France. On 9 February 2007, the French Parliament passed a bill granting COM status to both the French part of Saint Martin and neighbouring Saint Barthélemy. The new status took effect once the local assembly
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