France tries to stabilize situation in New Caledonia
The Elysee Palace announced that seven more mobile force units would soon arrive as reinforcements in New Caledonia, indicating that a state of emergency would end as planned in the French Pacific territory on Tuesday morning local time.
The state of emergency would end on Monday at 8:00 p.m. in Paris (Tuesday at 5:00 a.m. in Noumea).
Seven people have been killed, hundreds arrested and large numbers of buildings and cars destroyed in a fortnight of upheaval triggered by a contested electoral reform and fuelled by sharp economic disparities between the indigenous Kanak population and people of European background.
Police shot dead a man on Friday evening, a day after French President Emmanuel Macron visited to try to calm tensions.
An additional 480 gendarmes will bring the number of French security forces in the Pacific territory to 3,500.
The statement added that Macron’s decision not to renew the state of emergency illustrates Paris’s desire to start the de-escalation process and re-establish conditions for dialogue.
The main pro-independence political coalition, FLNKS (Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front), issued a communique on Saturday saying easing tensions was the priority and that the only viable solution was a “political and non-repressive solution.”
The French statement said lifting the emergency was intended to allow FLNKS to meet.
Macron “recalls that the lifting of the roadblocks is the necessary condition for the opening of concrete and serious negotiations,” it added.
Christian Tein of the Field Action Coordination Cell (CCAT), which organized the roadblocks impeding the movement and supply of food and medicine across the island, said on Friday that it ” remains mobilized. We maintain the resistance in our neighborhoods, in a structured, organized way.”
No announcement was made on a night curfew imposed by local authorities in New Caledonia.
The operator of Noumea International Airport has announced it will remain closed until June 2.
