A street blocked by burned objects and debris, in the Magenta district of Nouméa in New Caledonia, May 18, 2024 (AFP/Delphine Mayeur)
The French state launched a vast law enforcement operation on Sunday in its South Pacific archipelago of New Caledonia to clear the road to the airport on Sunday, after six deaths in six days of riots against electoral reform.
This operation “with more than 600 gendarmes” aims “to regain complete control of the 60 km main road between Nouméa and the airport”, announced the French Minister of the Interior Gérald Darmanin in a message on X.
An emergency for the authorities, especially since New Zealand announced on Sunday that it had asked France to be able to land planes, in order to repatriate its nationals.
“We are ready to take off, and are awaiting authorization from the French authorities to know when these flights can take place safely,” Foreign Minister Winston Peters said in a statement.
In the absence of flights to and from New Caledonia, suspended since Tuesday, the government of the archipelago estimated on Saturday that 3,200 people were stranded, either because they could not leave the archipelago or because they could not join him.
– More than 3,000 people stranded –
To clear the road to the airport, a convoy made up in particular of armored vehicles and construction equipment left Nouméa, initially towards Païta.
AFP journalists noted that on Sunday at midday, in Nouméa and in neighboring towns, separatists were filtering the passage through numerous roadblocks made of stones, various machines or other objects, depending on vehicles that present themselves.
The violence left six dead, the latest on Saturday afternoon, a Caldoche (Caledonian of European origin) in Kaala-Gomen, in the North province. The other five dead are two gendarmes and three Kanak civilians, in the Nouméa metropolitan area.
In a press release on Sunday morning, the High Commission of the Republic in New Caledonia, however, reported a “calmer” night, stressing that the State was mobilizing.
“In total, 230 rioters were arrested” in almost a week, he said.
Regaining control by force should be a long-term task for the police. The violence in some neighborhoods every night shows that the rioters remain very determined.
“The reality is that there are (…) lawless zones (…) which are held by armed bands, separatist bands, the CCAT. And in these places, they destroy everything,” said the vice-president of the Southern province of New Caledonia, Philippe Blaise, on BFMTV on Saturday.
The Field Action Coordination Cell (CCAT) is a radical independence organization accused of inciting greater violence.
– “Interference” –
New example of the unrest during the night from Saturday to Sunday: according to the public television channel Nouvelle-Calédonie La 1ère, the media library in the Rivière salée district of Nouméa was set on fire.
Questioned by AFP, Nouméa town hall responded on Sunday morning that it had “no way at the moment to verify it, as the neighborhood is inaccessible”.
A police officer speaks with a resident in Noumea in New Caledonia in front of a queue to enter a supermarket on May 18, 2024 (AFP/Theo Rouby)
The mayor of Nouméa, Sonia Lagarde (Renaissance), estimated on Saturday on BFMTV that the situation was “far from a return to appeasement”. “Can we say that we are in a besieged city? Yes, I think we can say that,” she added.
The exceptional measures of the state of emergency are maintained, namely the curfew between 6:00 p.m. and 6:00 a.m. (7:00 a.m. and 7:00 p.m. GMT), the ban on gatherings, the transport of weapons and the sale of alcohol, and the banning of the TikTok application.
For the population, traveling, buying basic necessities and seeking healthcare becomes more difficult every day. Fewer and fewer businesses are able to open, and the numerous obstacles to traffic increasingly complicate the logistics of supplying them, especially in the most disadvantaged neighborhoods.
On Sunday morning, the Southern province, which accounts for nearly two-thirds of the population, announced that all schools would remain closed during the week.
The French authorities hope that the state of emergency in force since Thursday will reduce the violence, which began on Monday after a mobilization against an electoral reform contested by representatives of the indigenous Kanak people, who fear a reduction in their electoral weight.
Masked residents look at an activist at the entrance to the Tuband district, in Nouméa, on May 15, 2024 in New Caledonia (AFP/Delphine Mayeur)
Without making a direct link with the violence, Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin accused Azerbaijan of interference in New Caledonia, with Baku denouncing “unfounded” accusations.
French senator Claude Malhuret, rapporteur for a commission of inquiry into TikTok, banned on the archipelago due to the riots, said that we should no longer fear “interference from China” which “wants to be in its own backyard”. square in the China Sea but also preponderant in the Pacific. “It needs nickel to produce its batteries,” he explained in an interview with AFP, referring to the raw ore of which the archipelago holds 20 to 30% of the world’s resources.
© 2024 AFP
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