(Nouméa) Looted stores, burned houses, shooting at the gendarmes: extremely violent clashes broke out during the night from Monday to Tuesday in New Caledonia, while the National Assembly is examining in Paris a constitutional revision decried by the independentists.
“Violence is never justified or justifiable,” said Gabriel Attal. “The priority, obviously, for us, is to restore order, calm and serenity,” added the Prime Minister on the sidelines of a trip to Savoie.
The representative of the State in the French archipelago in the South Pacific, Louis Le Franc, decreed a curfew for the night from Tuesday to Wednesday in the urban area of Nouméa.
“We have no deaths, there are no serious injuries for the moment, there could have been some,” declared the High Commissioner of the Republic to the press.
The police have made 82 arrests over the past two days, Gérald Darmanin told the press.
The Minister of the Interior and Overseas Territories “extremely strongly condemned this violence”, which he described as “riots committed by delinquents, sometimes criminals”.
A total of 54 gendarmes and police officers were injured, some “seriously”, added Mr. Darmanin, specifying that families of gendarmes had been “evacuated”.
In Nouméa, the High Commissioner of the Republic called on the population for calm, as did the pro-independence president of the territorial government, Louis Mapou.
The president of the Caledonian Union (independence) Daniel Goa asked the youth to “go home” and condemned looting and abuses. “The unrest of the last 24 hours reveals the determination of our young people to no longer let France do them,” he commented.
“Exfiltrations of residents”
The first altercations between demonstrators and the police began on Monday, on the sidelines of a pro-independence mobilization against the constitutional reform examined in Paris at the National Assembly, aimed at expanding the electorate in the crucial provincial elections. in New Caledonia.
The separatists believe that this thaw risks “even further minoritizing the indigenous Kanak people”.
Mr. Le Franc reported “tense shooting with large caliber weapons, long-range rifles, on the gendarmes” during the night from Monday to Tuesday in the commune of Mont-Dore, southeast of Nouméa.
In the northern districts of Nouméa, the state representative deplored “destruction of businesses, pharmacies and homes”.
“We have unfortunately observed exfiltration of residents from their homes only to have their homes burnt down,” added Louis Le Franc.
Elements of the GIGN, the elite intervention unit of the gendarmerie, intervened to rescue an 81-year-old person whose house was in flames, Gérald Darmanin told the National Assembly.
The minister specified that the octogenarian was the father of Sonia Backès, the president of the southern province of the archipelago and the main figure of the non-independence camp.
“If he was not attacked because he was my father, he was at least attacked because he was White,” the former Secretary of State said on BFMTV, deploring “racist insults” .
“We have been confronted for more than twenty-four hours with a real outburst of hatred, an outpouring of young people, often alcoholic, clearly manipulated and of quite unprecedented violence,” lamented General Nicolas Matthéos, commander of the New Gendarmerie. -Caledonia.
Gendarmerie brigades were attacked, according to the same source, citing rioters trying to enter the premises “with sabers”, “stones” and “shooting”.
“Sadness”
In fear of getting bogged down, elements of the GIGN, the RAID, its equivalent for the police, four squadrons of mobile gendarmes and two sections of the CRS 8, a unit specializing in the fight against urban violence, were mobilized.
Seven gendarmerie squadrons are on site, compared to three to four normally, according to the gendarmerie.
Nouméa firefighters said they received nearly 1,500 calls overnight from Monday to Tuesday and intervened on around 200 fires.
According to an employers’ organization, around thirty shops, factories and businesses were set on fire.
“I have a feeling of sadness,” Jean-Franck Jallet, owner of a butchery business saved from the flames by firefighters, told AFP.
“We have 40 employees, we came close to the disaster. We believed that living together was possible, but it didn’t work, there are too many lies,” lamented this boss.
Gatherings prohibited
All gatherings have been banned in greater Nouméa, as have the carrying of weapons and the sale of alcohol throughout the archipelago, indicated the high commission, which invited the 270,000 inhabitants of Nouvelle- Caledonia to stay at home.
The Caledonian government has for its part announced the closure of high schools and colleges until further notice. The international airport was closed until Thursday.
During a tense session Monday in the National Assembly, Gérald Darmanin called on deputies to adopt without modification the reform, which opens the provincial vote to residents who have lived on the island for at least ten years.
The debates could not be concluded during the night, due to a large number of amendments tabled in particular by the group La France insoumise (LFI).
The conference of presidents of the Assembly, however, decided on Tuesday morning that the vote on the draft constitutional law would remain on the agenda for the day.
After that of the Senate, the approval of the Assembly is necessary before bringing Parliament together in Congress to revise the Constitution, on a date which remains to be fixed.