State of emergency lifted, curfew maintained and relative calm confirmed night after night… New Caledonia continued, Tuesday, May 28, its fragile return to normal in the wake of an acute crisis, marked by seven deaths , dams and damage.
Up to 3,500 law enforcement personnel, in total, will be deployed in this French archipelago in the South Pacific, which has been engaged in a process of emancipation since 1998. A draft constitutional law has triggered riots and there is no way out of the political crisis for the time being, due to lack of agreement between loyalists and separatists. L’Express takes stock of the situation.
No barricades in Montravel
The night from Monday to Tuesday was “relatively calm”, wrote the High Commission of the Republic (state representative) in a press release. In the popular district of Montravel in Nouméa, mainly populated by the Kanak and Oceanian communities and which was at the forefront of the revolt, no barricade was set up on Tuesday. In Apogoti, as in Païta and Dumbéa-sur-Mer, at each dam, the watchword seems to be the same: let it pass, even if detours are still necessary due to the debris blocking the road, causing numerous traffic jams.
Transport returns to service
Stopped since May 14, Nouméa taxis are resuming service, the radio taxi association announced on Tuesday, the day after the resumption of road traffic in the area, which also generated long traffic jams. The bus network which serves Nouméa and Greater Nouméa, however, remains paralyzed. Another public service still affected by the dams is the collection of household waste.
Cleaning is in progress
But here too, a sign of a timid return to normal, the Nouméa town hall organized its very first collection tour on Monday since the outbreak of the crisis, for “only three neighborhoods”, according to the municipality. Tuesday, the High Commission of the Republic, which reported “nearly 500” arrests, assured that the clearance was progressing in Nouméa in “the sectors of Magenta, Tuband and the Wallisian home”, and that “the progress of the cleaning and the security of the main roads allows access to adjacent streets that were previously blocked”.
Access to the hospital was secured
Access to the local hospital was released on Monday and secured, but being “focused on emergency management and the resumption of vital care”, the management of the establishment on Tuesday called on Caledonians “not to travel to the Médipôle outside of emergency cases.
Will the airport reopen on June 2?
If Nouméa international airport -La Tontouta-, closed to commercial flights since May 14, will remain closed at least until June 2. Schools will not reopen before mid-June. French people and foreign tourists stuck on the archipelago must continue to be evacuated. Since the start of the crisis, 1,200 people have been evacuated by plane and 270 New Caledonian residents have been able to return, according to the High Commission.