Referendums organized after decimating the indigenous population, and importing french and pro-french people en masse for decades. Obviously if you make sure the indigenous people end up in the minority through colonization, your referendums will not translate to anything else.

This is like a company rejecting tons of co2 every year, planting 3 trees and greenwashing people into thinking they do everything against global warming.

This is totally about racism, but not in the direction you pretend it is.

by the way, the full text of the Nouméa Accord signed in 1998 after a previous insurection contain in its preamble the admission by the french state that New Caledonia/Kanaky is a colonized territory: https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/jorf/id/JORFTEXT000000555817/

The french state admitted it, the United Nations recognized it. Only the current french government is not recognizing it because it is gradually morphing towards extreme right and facism.