While Emmanuel Macron announced this Monday evening “clear progress” in the situation in New Caledonia, calm has still not returned to the island. Soldiers will now be deployed to protect public buildings and 600 additional members of the police should arrive soon. The gendarmes nevertheless regained ground and in certain neighborhoods, the rioters raised white flags. But at the same time, new looting took place during the night from Monday to Tuesday and the international airport must remain closed until at least Thursday.
It was in a hotel in Singapore that Europe 1 was able to meet several dozen Caledonians still stuck and very worried about the situation on the island.
“It’s very hard to live with”
70 people are therefore installed by the Caledonian airline in a ten-story building, near the famous Singapore marina. But Christelle, 72, doesn’t have the heart to go sightseeing. This Bordelaise says she is very worried by the news she receives, via screens, from her son and her granddaughter who live in Nouméa. “I am very moved. They missed them a lot,” she confides. “They had to queue for food. Where they live, they were still a little bit protected by these militias. So it’s not at all aggression, it’s really to defend the children, their families… It’s a war situation.”
These Caledonians count the days and kill time under crushing temperatures. 9 hours by plane still separate Matthias, a 33-year-old restaurateur, from his wife. “I won’t hide it from you, I looked to see if it wasn’t possible by sea. We’re going to try to get closer as quickly as possible because psychologically, it’s very hard to live with,” he confesses. . “We’re talking about a single woman with three children, not necessarily knowing how to defend herself, especially since they are young. Waiting for hours and hours in line or taking the car, thinking that there might be being the fear that we won’t come back or that we’ll be attacked… It’s very complicated for her to live in this insecurity.”
At this hotel, no one from the airline is able to say when the airport will reopen. Only one person left the group, a vascular surgeon urgently repatriated by military plane to treat the gunshot wounds.