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The recent New Zealand population thread got me thinking about another island in that region with a significant European settler population: France's overseas territory of New Caledonia.

IOTL New Caledonia has around 250,000 people today, about a third of whom are European settlers. It is very thinly-populated, as it covers a land area of 18,575 km² (7,172 sq. mi.).

How can this island become more extensively settled, to the point that it would have several million residents today (and would probably have become independent)?
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