The executive made an additional gesture in New Caledonia, by scheduling a lifting of the state of emergency, but the calm remains very relative after two weeks of riots, the curfew maintained and the arrival of new reinforcements of gendarmerie.
The state of emergency, established on May 15, will be lifted on Tuesday at 5 a.m. in Nouméa (6 p.m. GMT), announced the Élysée.
The lifting of these exceptional measures must “allow meetings of the different components of the FLNKS (main independence movement, Editor’s note) and travel to roadblocks of elected officials or officials able to call for their lifting”, specified the French presidency in a press release.
At the same time, the Élysée announced the dispatch “in the coming hours” of “seven additional mobile force units, or 480 mobile gendarmes”.
On site, the High Commission of the Republic for New Caledonia announced “the maintenance of general measures, in particular the ban on all travel on roads and in public places throughout the territory from 6 p.m. at 6 a.m.
Detonator
Exceptions are granted for health reasons or public service missions, but the sale of alcohol remains prohibited, as does the transport and carrying of weapons – estimated at around 100,000 in the archipelago – and the High Commission reports 460 arrests.
In total, some 3,500 security forces will be deployed on this archipelago of some 270,000 inhabitants engaged since 1998 in a process of emancipation from French supervision, and where riots have left seven dead, including two gendarmes.
The detonator of the unrest was the vote in Paris for a reform providing for expanding the local electorate to around 25,000 people established for at least ten years in New Caledonia, a casus belli for the separatists who judge that this thaw risks “minoritizing” the indigenous Kanak people even more.
On Thursday, the French president, traveling there, announced that there would be “no forceful passage”, but “no going back”. He made the end of the state of emergency conditional on a lifting of roadblocks, which is not yet the case everywhere.
Traveling to Berlin on Sunday, Emmanuel Macron had to qualify his daily remarks The Parisian published the day before on the possibility of organizing a national referendum on the unfreezing of the electoral body, which sparked new tensions on the island. This possibility arises from a simple “reading of the Constitution” and is “not an intention”, he assured.
The head of state wants to give priority to a “global agreement”, including in particular the future of the nickel sector. He gave separatists and loyalists until the end of June to outline the start of an agreement.
The economy of the archipelago, conquered and colonized in the 19th century, is essentially based on nickel, of which it accounts for 20 to 30% of the world’s reserves. Enough to raise fears of “interference” from China, according to French senator Claude Malhuret, who stressed to Agence France-Presse that Beijing “needs nickel to produce its batteries”.
The night from Sunday to Monday in Nouméa and its surrounding area was relatively calm, despite traces of clashes visible in the poor district of Vallée-du-Tir, noted a journalist from Agence France-Presse. In Nouméa, where garbage has been piling up for two weeks, traffic resumed on Monday with long traffic jams, a sign of a certain return to normal.
The road leading to Nouméa — La Tontouta international airport, very degraded in places, remains littered with vehicle wrecks and the airport, closed to commercial flights since May 14, will remain closed at least until June 2. .
“Without refueling”
French people and foreign tourists stuck on the archipelago must continue to be evacuated. Since the start of the crisis, there have been more than 1,200 people evacuated by plane, and 270 Caledonian residents who have been able to return, according to the High Commission.
On Monday, it is the Polynesians stuck in New Caledonia for two weeks who should be able to return home. A first return of Caledonians stranded in Singapore is also planned, according to the same source.
Daily life remains complicated for many residents, notably with schools which will not reopen before mid-June. “We are working, but without supplies, there is nothing to do,” Kila Thomas, a 58-year-old supermarket employee in La Tontouta, 50 kilometers north of Nouméa, told Agence France-Presse, adding that his family survives on their food reserves and travels on foot due to fuel shortages and roadblocks.
The FLNKS (Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front) admitted on Saturday that “today, the main objective of the independence movement is to ease tensions and find lasting solutions for our country”.
The separatists are still demanding the withdrawal of the constitutional reform, which caused the worst violence in 40 years and awakened the specter of the “Events” which, from 1984 to 1988, left nearly 80 dead and feared the plunge of New Caledonia in the civil war.