Four deaths, including a gendarme in his twenties hit in the head by a shot, 64 injured, more than 200 arrests since Monday… This is the result, at this stage, of three nights of riots in New Caledonia. The archipelago is shaken by the revolt of the separatists against an electoral reform voted by Parliament.
Prime Minister Gabriel Attal announced the deployment of the army in this overseas territory. The military deployment should make it possible to “secure” the ports and the airport, said Gabriel Attal on Wednesday, who will once again chair an interministerial crisis unit this Thursday morning.
The high commissioner on the French Pacific territory, Louis Le Franc, for his part “announced a curfew and banned TikTok”, a social network used by the rioters, said the head of government. A state of emergency was also declared. It came into force on Wednesday evening from 8 p.m. Paris time (5 a.m. in Nouméa). It allows the State to have enhanced powers to ensure the maintenance of order. A sign of the seriousness of the situation: the President of the Republic Emmanuel Macron “postponed” a long-planned trip to Flamanville (Manche), where he was to inaugurate the EPR, a nuclear reactor. In addition, the authorities announced this Thursday an “air bridge” between France and the Caledonian territory, where the airport remains closed until further notice, in particular to “ensure that the essential needs of the population are taken into account”. .
Information to remember
⇒ A slightly less violent night but “very significant clashes”
⇒ 70 arrests took place in the last 24 hours
⇒ Darmanin placed five radical separatists under house arrest
A “less violent” night
After two nights of deadly conflagration, that of Wednesday to Thursday “was less violent”, declared the high commissioner. In the urban area of Nouméa, residents began to organize the protection of their neighborhoods and erected makeshift barricades, made of wooden pallets, cans and other wheelbarrows, on which they planted white flags.
Despite this, violence continued on the archipelago, which once again experienced “very significant clashes”, lamented the high commissioner this Thursday. The Nouméa metropolitan area has once again fallen prey to looting and fires, he added. “There are also traps set for the police,” who were subjected to “heavy fire from long-range rifles,” he said. The customary Senate building was set on fire, according to its communications service, without the extent of the damage being known at this time.
Around 70 new arrests in 24 hours
Some 70 arrests took place over the last 24 hours in New Caledonia, the High Commission of the Republic said this Thursday morning in Nouméa. Louis Le Franc, High Commissioner of the Republic, praised in a press release “the commitment and professionalism of the police who are the subject of attacks”. “64 gendarmes and police officers were injured” and “nearly 200 rioters were arrested” since Monday, he said. He also announced that “an air bridge between France and the territory (would) make it possible to quickly transport internal security, civil security and military reinforcements but also equipment to ensure that the essential needs of the population.
Large numbers of police and gendarmes, including elements of their two elite groups, the GIGN and the RAID, have already been mobilized. Other reinforcements were being transported to the archipelago, according to Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin. According to the ministry, 1,800 police and gendarmes were deployed there on Wednesday and 500 more will arrive there in the coming hours.
Mélenchon castigates “neocolonialism” in New Caledonia
Radical left opponent Jean-Luc Mélenchon saw Wednesday in the riots which left four dead in New Caledonia the manifestation of a return to “neocolonialism”, with no way out according to him. Jean-Luc Mélenchon, visiting Senegal until Saturday at the invitation of the pan-Africanist and sovereignist party Pastef, winner of the recent presidential election, recalled the events in Thiaroye (Senegal) in December 1944, in a declaration after a visit by the house of former president Léopold Sédar Senghor in Dakar. Colonial troops and French gendarmes had fired on repatriated Senegalese riflemen who were demanding their back pay. Dozens of riflemen had been killed.
“If I mention this episode of neocolonialism at this moment, it is because France, which initially thought it had got away with it, is returning to it at this moment, and at the time I am speaking to you we have to suffer from three deaths among young Kanaks and a French gendarme, killed in Nouméa”, declared Jean-Luc Mélenchon. “One hundred and seventy years of relentlessness were not enough to defeat the Kanak will to once again become sovereign of its destiny and no one will ever succeed,” he said. “There is no (other) way out of a colonial situation than decolonization and everything else is a waste of time,” he added.
Five radical separatists under house arrest
Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin announced Wednesday evening that he had placed five radical separatists under house arrest following the entry into force of the state of emergency in New Caledonia, which was in the grip of violent riots. “I have just signed the first five house arrest orders for radical and violent leaders,” said the Minister of the Interior on X. “On my instructions, administrative searches will be carried out by the police immediately “, he added.
These are five people belonging to the Field Action Coordination Cell (CCAT), the most radical fringe of the socialist Kanak Liberation Front (FLNKS), according to a source close to the matter interviewed by AFP. Led by Christian Tein, the general commissioner of the Caledonian Union (the island’s main independence party), this cell, of which former Secretary of State Sonia Backès requested the dissolution, was created at the end of 2023 and includes components political and union.
In a press release, the CCAT stressed that its objective was the achievement of independence “as provided for by the Nouméa agreement” of 1998 and the freezing of the local electorate, contrary to the reform desired by the government. The leaders of this movement, without reacting to these summons, argued that “the abuses committed […] were not necessary”, but were “the expression of the invisible people of society who suffer inequalities head-on and are marginalized on a daily basis”.
Macron proposed to Caledonian elected officials to have “an exchange by videoconference”
Emmanuel Macron proposed to Caledonian elected officials to have an “exchange by videoconference” this Thursday at the end of a new crisis meeting on the riots in the overseas archipelago, the Elysée announced. “The Head of State will chair a defense and national security council on the situation in New Caledonia this Thursday at 11 a.m. At the end, he proposed to Caledonian elected officials an exchange by videoconference,” declared the presidency .
This is the second defense council in as many days convened by Emmanuel Macron. He had already asked Gabriel Attal to invite, with Gérald Darmanin, the elected separatists and loyalists to Paris soon to try to relaunch the dialogue. However, the invitation has not yet been formalized.