A “mafia” group. Gérald Darmanin does not hesitate to use virulent terms to castigate the “CCAT”, the Field Action Coordination Unit, while New Caledonia has been in the grip of violent riots since Monday May 13. This structure, created at the end of 2023 and led by Christian Tein, the general commissioner of the Caledonian Union (UC), was set up by the UC, the main independence party on the island.
Gérald Darmanin announced Wednesday evening that he had placed five radical separatists from the CCAT under house arrest following the entry into force of the state of emergency in New Caledonia. “I have just signed the first five house arrest orders for radical and violent leaders,” said the Minister of the Interior and Overseas Territories on X. “On my instructions, administrative searches will be carried out by the forces order immediately,” he added.
“The CCAT, which is now far from the FLNKS, is a mafia group which clearly wants to introduce violence, as they did in the (nickel) factory in the south last year” but “the Republic will not tremble “, said Gérald Darmanin again. “It is a small group which calls itself independentist and which commits looting and violence. They should not be confused with political activists,” added the minister on France 2 this Thursday morning. “The CCAT is the problem” on the archipelago, he also estimated.
Political and union components
This most radical fringe of the Socialist Kanak Liberation Front (FLNKS) brings together political and trade union components from New Caledonia. These are the USTKE (the Trade Union Union of Kanak and Exploited Workers), the CNTP (National Confederation of Pacific Workers), the Caledonian Union, the Labor Party and even the MOI (Movement of Oceanians Independentists), remember Mediapart. Its objective was to organize the mobilization in New Caledonia so that the State could hear their opposition to the unfreezing of the electoral body.
The constitutional revision provides for the expansion of the electorate to all native Caledonians and residents for at least ten years for provincial elections. As spotted The Parisian, this text “is a serious threat to our living together”, affirms the CCAT, which sees, between its lines, the marks of “colonial domination”. For several weeks, she has organized mobilization on the sidelines of political discussions on the institutional future of Caillou.
The CCAT intends to represent the Kanak population, making up 41% of the inhabitants of the archipelago. Its objective is “accession to the full sovereignty of Kanaky”, the name given to New Caledonia by the separatists. In a press release, the leaders of this movement, without reacting to these house arrests, stressed that the objective was the achievement of independence “as provided for by the Nouméa agreement” of 1998 and the freezing of the body local electoral system, contrary to the reform desired by the government.
“We will never go back”
The violence that broke out since Monday did not prevent deputies from voting on this constitutional bill during the night from Tuesday to Wednesday. They “chose to add fuel to the fire”, estimated the CCAT, but “there remains one last chance for the State to hear our cry from the heart and definitively stop its plan in the name of peace in our country “, in reference to the convocation of deputies and senators to Congress to ratify the reform.
Calling “all communities in the country to join them”, these leaders explained that they had to take their actions up a notch while ensuring that they wanted to maintain them “in a peaceful manner”: “we will never back down”, they proclaimed. They also denounce “the stubbornness of the French state” and provocations, with “the presence of loyalist militias who attack our people on the ground with the backing of the police.” “The abuses committed on businesses, companies, buildings and public facilities were not necessary, but they are the expression of the invisible people of society who suffer inequalities head-on and are marginalized on a daily basis,” adds their statement. communicated.