Caldoches

Caldoche

Caldoche "bushmen" cavaliers carrying the 2011 Pacific Games flame in Bourail
Total population
(73,199)
Regions with significant populations
New Caledonia (27.1% of total population), mainly in Noumea
Languages
French
Religion
Mainly Roman Catholicism, Protestantism
Related ethnic groups
French people

Caldoche is the name given to European inhabitants of the French overseas collectivity of New Caledonia, mostly native-born French settlers. The term "caldoche" has a pejorative connotation. The formal name to refer to this particular population is Calédoniens, short for the very formal Néo-Calédoniens, but this self-appellation technically includes all inhabitants of the New Caledonian archipelago, not just the Caldoche. Another "white" demographic element (although they may well be French people of different ethnic backgrounds) in the territory is expatriates from metropolitan France who live there temporarily as civil servants. Caldoches are keen to differentiate themselves from these inhabitants, underlining their position as the permanent locals, referring to them as métros (short for métropolitains) or as Zoreilles (informally zozos) in local slang.

New Caledonia was used as a penal colony from 1854 to 1922 by France. From this period and on, many Europeans (particularly of French and, to some extent, German origin) settled in the territory and they intermingled with Asian and Polynesian settlers. Code de l'indigénat, introduced in 1887, provided the free settler population with an advantageous status over the indigenous Melanesian peoples, known collectively as Kanak. Caldoches settled and gained property on the dry west coast of the main island Grande Terre where the capital Nouméa is also located, pushing the Kanaks onto small reservations in the north and east. With the superior position, they constituted the ruling class of the colony and they were the ones who widened the usage of the word Canaque as a pejorative.