“We must not think that it will be simple and quick to resolve,” underlines former Secretary of State for Overseas Yves Jégo.

“You should not think that it will be quick and easy to resolve”underlines the former Secretary of State for Overseas Yves Jégo on the subject of the riots in New Caledonia. “It is more than an insurrection, it is a risk of civil war between the separatists and the loyalists. We must take the situation with particular attention because it is complicated to overcome and the way out is not so obvious “estimates Yves Jégo, who says to himself “very concerned”. These riots, which occurred after the vote on a text expanding the electoral body in New Caledonia, left four dead, including a police officer.

The situation is particularly difficult to manage due to the “pass”, “tensions between populations” and the size of the island because “considerable military or police resources are required” to secure the entire territory which extends over more than 18,000 km2. Yves Jégo also describes a youth “who lives in secrecy and seizes all subjects to – as is also the case in mainland France – break, pillage, burn”.

Faced with this, the former Secretary of State recommends “secure and restore order but also provide a political exit”. He mentions the need for the resumption of a “dialogue” between the elected officials of the two camps and “working on a territorial project which gives perspectives to young people and shows that it is a territory with dynamics and not just a territory which lives on its past”.

According to him, beyond putting the constitutional revision on the electoral body on hold, it is necessary “a global plan, which will perhaps require a specific law or even a law for programming a certain number of devices”.