New Caledonia | Vast French operation to restore order, “whatever it costs”

(Nouméa) The French state went on the offensive in New Caledonia on Sunday to try to restore “republican order, whatever the cost”, and to clear the road between Nouméa and the international airport, after six deaths in six days of riots in its South Pacific archipelago.

The anger of the separatists was provoked by a reform of the electoral body, contested by representatives of the indigenous Kanak people who fear a reduction in their weight. Unprecedented violence in 40 years has left six dead since Monday, two gendarmes and four civilians.

“I want to say to the rioters: stop, return to calm, surrender your weapons,” declared the High Commissioner of the Republic, Louis Le Franc, during a televised press briefing on the island.

“Republican order will be restored, whatever the cost,” insisted the state representative. “The firmness instructions have been passed,” echoed the French Minister of the Interior and Overseas Territories, Gérald Darmanin, from Paris, in a message on X.

To regain control of an insurrectional situation, the executive gave priority to clearing the road between the “capital” Nouméa and the international airport, some 50 kilometers away, closed to commercial flights.

On this axis, strategic for the resupply of the south of the big island subject to shortages, 600 gendarmes were deployed on Sunday, including around a hundred members of the elite GIGN unit.

A convoy made up of armored gendarmerie vehicles and construction equipment traveled along this axis to remove obstacles.

“The operation to clear the main road […] was a success: 76 dams destroyed,” Mr. Darmanin welcomed in his tweet.

“We put the dam back”

But the road is still cluttered in many places with burnt car wrecks, scrap metal and piled up wood.

“They came by, they cleared it, and we stayed to the side. We are pacifists,” Jean-Charles, in his fifties, told AFP, head turbaned in a scarf and independence flag in hand, in La Tamoa, a few kilometers from the airport.

“Afterwards, once they had passed, we put the roadblock back on,” he assured. “In any case, it is filtering, […] except at night.

Restoring air access is particularly pressing since New Zealand and Australia announced on Sunday that they had asked France to be able to land planes to repatriate their nationals.

On Saturday, the government of the archipelago estimated that 3,200 people were stranded, unable to either leave or rejoin.

The crisis has left a total of six dead, the latest on Saturday, a Caldoche (Caledonian of European origin), in the North province.

The other five are two gendarmes, including one killed by accidental shooting, and three Kanaks, in the Nouméa area. In total, “230 rioters were arrested,” according to the French state.

Regaining control should be a long-term task for the police, while roads are still cut, damage continues, and the number of rioters is estimated between 3,000 and 5,000.

“Schools have again been destroyed”, as well as “pharmacies, vital food supply centers, commercial spaces”, Louis Le Franc listed on Sunday, adding: “We are starting to run out of food”.

The high commissioner also announced new “harassment operations” by elite units “where there are hard points”, notably Nouméa, Dumbéa and Païta.

“In the days to come, it will intensify” and in areas “where there are still rioters”, he warned: “if they want to use their weapons, they take all the risks”.

Mr. Le Franc called on those who formed “protection groups” to protect their neighborhoods “to keep hope” and “not to commit the irreparable”, which would cause “a general conflagration”.

“Immediate withdrawal” of the text

For the population, traveling, buying basic necessities and seeking healthcare becomes more difficult every day. The numerous obstacles to traffic complicate the logistics of supplying stores, especially in the most disadvantaged neighborhoods.

The exceptional measures of the state of emergency are maintained, namely the curfew between 6 p.m. and 6 a.m. local time, the ban on gatherings, the transport of weapons, the sale of alcohol and the ban on alcohol. TikTok app.

The constitutional reform which ignited the powder aims to expand the electoral body for provincial elections, at the risk of marginalizing “even more the indigenous Kanak people”, according to the separatists. It was adopted in Paris by the deputies, after the senators, during the night from Tuesday to Wednesday.

This text will still have to be voted on by parliamentarians meeting in Congress, unless an agreement on a global text between separatists and loyalists occurs beforehand.

The presidents of four French overseas executives, Reunion in the Indian Ocean, the West Indian islands of Guadeloupe and Martinique, and Guyana in South America, demanded on Sunday its “immediate withdrawal”.

“Only the political response will put an end to the increase in violence and prevent civil war,” they write in a column.

In Paris, the President of the Assembly, her Senate counterpart and parliamentarians from all political stripes requested a dialogue mission on Friday to ease the crisis.

But the consensus seemed less clear on a postponement of the date for convening the Congress, requested on Sunday by former Prime Minister Manuel Valls.

A sign of a situation that could last, the passage of the Olympic flame from the Paris Olympics, scheduled for June 11 on the island, has been canceled.