French President Emmanuel Macron is traveling to New Caledonia on Tuesday, more than a week after the start of unprecedented violence in 40 years in the French archipelago in the South Pacific, where “the situation is improving” according to the authorities.
This surprise visit by the Head of State was announced Tuesday in the Council of Ministers, at a time when demands are increasing to postpone the reform of the electoral body which caused the riots.
Emmanuel Macron will go “this evening” to New Caledonia to set up a “mission” there, explained the government spokesperson, Prisca Thevenot, without wanting to detail the “mission” mentioned or say how long the head of the State would remain on the archipelago.
In New Caledonia, eight days after the start of the violence which left six dead, the fragile return to calm “continues throughout the territory”, described the state representative there, Louis Le Franc, in a press release published Tuesday morning.
However, he announced the sending of additional troops “in the coming hours” to quell the violence shaking the archipelago, in reaction to a constitutional reform decried by the separatists.
Its services announced on X the arrest of 22 people on Tuesday and the installation of permanent reinforcements in three districts of the Nouméa metropolitan area.
Because Nouméa and its agglomeration continue to be the scene of localized clashes and the roadblocks have even expanded or been reconstituted in places during the night, noted an AFP journalist, to whom several witnesses reported significant detonations and clashes in the Tuband district.
“White flags”
“Yes, the situation is improving, the police are doing their job,” Vaimu’a Muliava, a member of the government of New Caledonia, assured BFMTV television, adding that the territory was “draped in white flags.” .
In the last 24 hours, the gendarmes say they have regained possession of around “thirty” roadblocks, a gendarmerie source told AFP.
While the specter of a shortage of food and medicine looms over the Nouméa metropolitan area, Mr. Le Franc assured that 21 supermarkets had reopened “and are gradually being replenished”.
The exceptional measures of the state of emergency are maintained, namely the nighttime curfew, the ban on gatherings, the transport of weapons and the sale of alcohol and the ban on the TikTok application.
Six people have been killed since the violence began. Among the dead are two mobile gendarmes whose remains were brought back by military plane to the south of France on Monday.
At the end of the third Defense Council organized in less than a week on Monday evening, Emmanuel Macron welcomed “clear progress” in terms of security, according to the presidential services.
On Monday, the presidency also announced the mobilization “for a time” of soldiers in order to “protect public buildings” in the archipelago and relieve police and gendarmes.
Since the start of the riots on May 13, 84 representatives of the police have been injured, indicated Tuesday Gérald Darmanin during the questions session to the government of deputies.
The police made 276 arrests, 248 of which led to police custody, the Minister of the Interior clarified a little later during a hearing at the National Assembly.
A sign of the difficulty in regaining control of the security situation, the international airport of the French archipelago announced that it would remain closed to commercial flights until Saturday morning.
Australia and New Zealand, which have been trying for several days to repatriate their hundreds of stranded nationals, announced Tuesday morning the sending of several flights to evacuate them.
The first plane carrying Australian tourists landed in Brisbane on Tuesday.
“We don’t give up”
On Tuesday morning, on the express road leading to the international airport, the warehouse of an office supply company was on fire, emitting thick black smoke.
Two piled-up car wrecks form a barrier 200 meters away, young hooded men filtering the passage of the cars.
Around 400 businesses and businesses have suffered damage in Nouméa and neighboring towns since the start of the riots.
At the dams, the mobilization does not seem to be weakening despite the massive deployment of internal security forces, which now exceed 2,700 people.
“We’re not giving up!” We don’t give up until they remove the text […] Even if we have to die, we will stay there at the roadblocks,” assures AFP Simon, a 34-year-old delivery driver who guards a roadblock in a pro-independence neighborhood.
Some vehicles can pass, their occupants greet the activists. “We’ve been here for a week, the passers-by are used to it,” continues Simon, who assures that some “give them bread, water”.
For their part, the main non-independence figures of the archipelago, gathered at a press conference in Nouméa, called for continuing the examination of the contested constitutional reform, which must be adopted before the end of June.
Its withdrawal would be “a very serious error” which would “prove the thugs, the looters and the rioters right”, asserted the deputy for New Caledonia, Nicolas Metzdorf.
However, calls have multiplied, from all political sides and even the loyalist mayor of Nouméa, to demand a postponement of this reform.
If adopted, the text would have the consequence of marginalizing the voices of the indigenous Kanak community, denounce the separatists.