It began with an enticing offer: an all-expenses-paid trip to Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan.
It was July last year and Roch Wamytan, a prominent leader in New Caledonia's independence movement, took up the offer to fly to the former Soviet state for a series of meetings.
On the surface, everything seemed routine.
Azerbaijan was hosting a meeting of the Non-Aligned Movement, a group founded during the Cold War for states who chose not to align with either major power bloc.
But the host soon revealed another motive.
During one meeting, at the instigation of Azerbaijan's President Ilham Aliyev, a new organisation called the "Baku Initiative Group" was formed.
Its stated aim was to help French territories "fight against colonialism", and before long a member of the group approached Mr Wamytan with a proposition.
"They offered to give us financial assistance," Mr Wamytan told Foreign Correspondent. "But given the request, or the opposition of the [French] government, we did not accept."
The offer to help fund New Caledonia's independence movement is the latest in a series of targeted attempts by Azerbaijan to exert influence in the South Pacific archipelago, a French overseas territory and one of Australia's closest neighbours.
Details of the offer, revealed by Foreign Correspondent, come amid claims Azerbaijan has waged a campaign of incitement during recent riots in New Caledonia in a deliberate attempt to undermine French rule.
In the past year, these islands on Australia's doorstep have become a new front in an ongoing feud between France and Azerbaijan, two countries thousands of kilometres away on the other side of the world.
The feud between France and Azerbaijan
The relationship between France and Azerbaijan has deteriorated sharply in recent years, largely due to Azerbaijan's ongoing conflict with its neighbour Armenia over the contested region of Nagorno-Karabakh.
France has supported Armenia in the dispute, which has fuelled tensions with Azerbaijan.
Those tensions have boiled over in recent months with mutual accusations of foreign interference.
At the end of last year, following the formation of the Baku Initiative Group, Azerbaijani flags began appearing at independence rallies in New Caledonia.?
It was an unusual sight and the first sign that something was amiss.
Then in November, the French online disinformation agency Viginum accused actors linked to Azerbaijan of orchestrating a disinformation campaign calling for a boycott of the Olympics.?
Azerbaijan denied this.?
Just a few weeks later, French media reported that French security services had apprehended and deported two Azerbaijani journalists from New Caledonia who they believed were conducting espionage in the territory.?
Shortly afterwards, Azerbaijani authorities arrested a French national they suspected of being a spy.?
In a statement at the time, Azerbaijan's ambassador to France claimed the French citizen was arrested "on suspicion of carrying out acts of espionage".?
Then in April, the connections between Azerbaijan's government and New Caledonia's independence movement grew more explicit.
Roch Wamytan sent a representative to Baku to sign a memorandum of understanding with Azerbaijan's parliament that promised "inter-parliamentary cooperation and strengthening friendly ties between the peoples of Azerbaijan and New Caledonia".
The move stirred up controversy among pro-French members of the loyalist parties in New Caledonia, but Mr Wamytan said the agreement was nothing unusual.
"All parliaments around the world enter into partnership agreements,"?he said.
"For example, friendship between the populations, exchange visits from elected representatives from New Caledonia to go to Azerbaijan and Azerbaijan to come here, to meet and work on crosscutting issues that are of interest to them and to us here."
Adding fuel to the fire
New Caledonia has been mired in unrest since May, following changes to the electoral roll that the independence movement feared would diminish their voting power.
The offer of financial support from Azerbaijan only exacerbates an already volatile situation, said Dr Pierre-Christophe Pantz, a geopolitics associate researcher at the University of New Caledonia.
"In reality, what Azerbaijan is doing in New Caledonia is what we call a form of 'hybrid warfare'," he said.
"We have the feeling that today, Azerbaijan's interest in New Caledonia … is a bit like Azerbaijan targeting France's Achilles heel in the Pacific."
While these attacks on France are nothing new, Dr Pantz said the offer of money represented a steep escalation in the allegations of foreign interference.
"It's one thing to be able to organise meetings on the issue of colonialism, on the issue of French imperialism. It's another to provide logistical and financial support to the New Caledonian independence movement," he said.
Roch Wamytan told Foreign Correspondent he too had concerns about the ramifications of accepting funding from an enemy of France, which is partly why he rejected the offer.
"If they send us several billions of Pacific francs, that would create problems, so we don't want to enter into these considerations," Mr Wamytan said.
"So we only accepted airfares, for example, the latest invitations that we had for the meetings in Vienna, in that case, they cover everything. It is a form of assistance and that's enough for us, otherwise it would generate too many problems."
The Baku Initiative Group "did not state an amount" of assistance they were willing to provide, he said.
"They just said our principle is to assist countries who are fighting just about everywhere, but we didn't get to the amount because we stopped right at the principle: would you accept help from us? And we said no, it's too complicated to manage."
France's government has expressed its concerns at Azerbaijan's attempts at interference in New Caledonia.
When the riots began, Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin told television channel France 2: "This isn't a fantasy. It's a reality. I regret that some of the Caledonian pro-independence leaders have made a deal with Azerbaijan. It's indisputable."
At the time, Azerbaijan's government rejected the claim of foreign interference, but this did not prevent it from attempting to further undermine the French government.
During riots in Noumea in May, the French online disinformation agency picked up another social media campaign from Azerbaijan, this time targeting the riots.?
As they kicked off, thousands of posts began circulating on X (formerly Twitter) and Facebook featuring an image of a man armed with a rifle in firing position, opposite a dead Kanak protester, and the words "The French Police are murderers".
The image had been doctored by combining two separate photos to make it look like the man had shot the protester.
An investigation linked the authors of these posts to Azerbaijan's presidential political party, Yeni Azerbaycan Partiyasi (YAP).
However, Mr Wamytan is unconcerned by France's frosty relationship with Azerbaijan.
"We try to find, how shall I say, relationships with countries that can help us get out of this system," he said.
"As it happens, Azerbaijan — for its own reasons which we do not enter into — is helping us. That's something important, this help from Azerbaijan."
This relationship has further troubled France due to Azerbaijan's friendly relationship with Russia.
Dr Pantz believes Azerbaijan's attempts to stir up trouble in the region leave the territory vulnerable to exploitation by other countries.?
"The tip of the iceberg today is Azerbaijan," he said. "But there is a lot of evidence today that Azerbaijan is supported by powers such as Russia and Turkey too.
"And what can be said is that often, 'The enemies of my enemies are my friends'. But in this case, we can clearly see that through New Caledonia, both Azerbaijan and indirectly Russia, can reach French interests through this channel."
The Baku Initiative did not respond to Foreign Correspondent's questions.
Watch Paradise In Flames tonight on Foreign Correspondent at 8pm on ABC TV, ABC iview and the ABC In-Depth YouTube channel.
