Anger over France’s planned changes to voting rights in regional elections has led to New Caledonia’s worst protests in four decades.
Buildings and cars have been set on fire, shops have been looted and gunfire has so far resulted in six deaths and hundreds of injuries. The chaos has caused long queues outside banks and grocery stores, where the shelves are empty.
The archipelago’s airport has also been closed to commercial flights. Australian tourist Nicholas Agustin says he and his girlfriend don’t know how to get home.
– We saw men on the streets with balaclavas and large sticks. There was smoke over the city, he says.
Indigenous separatists have set up roadblocks using burnt car tires.
– We risk our lives just to go out quickly during the day and buy food, says Sophie Parkinson, who traveled to New Caledonia for work and is now stuck.
On Friday, reinforcements in the form of around 1,000 riot-equipped French soldiers and police arrived in the island group, located in the Pacific Ocean between Australia and Fiji. Hundreds of “rioters” have already been arrested, according to French authorities, and curfews have been imposed.
Why are the residents protesting? See more in the video.