A chocolate manufacturing facility and a soda bottling plant set on hearth. Molotov cocktails thrown on the police, and prisoners taking guards hostage. 5 individuals useless. As protests towards French management boiled over this week in New Caledonia, the South Pacific archipelago skilled a few of its most intense violence since a civil warfare many years in the past.
“I’m in a state of shock, I can’t transfer,” Lizzie Carboni, a author who lives in Noumea, the capital, mentioned by telephone because the fourth night time of protests started on Thursday. When she checked on her dad and mom, Ms. Carboni mentioned that her mom advised her: “We by no means needed to inform you about what occurred in 1984, however it’s occurring once more.”
France annexed New Caledonia, which lies about 900 miles off the jap coast of Australia, in 1853. It constructed a penal colony and over time shipped in additional foreigners to mine New Caledonia’s huge nickel reserves. That ultimately made the Indigenous Kanaks a minority in their very own land.
Probably the most severe problem to French rule got here within the Eighties, when French troops have been ordered in to quell a violent rebellion. Dozens of individuals died within the ensuing clashes. To finish the combating, French authorities agreed to place New Caledonia on a pathway to independence.
However the calculus in France has modified lately with the intensification of the jostling between the USA and China for affect within the Pacific. French officers worry that China might acquire sway in an unbiased New Caledonia, simply because it has sought to do in different South Pacific international locations like Vanuatu and the Solomon Islands.
President Emmanuel Macron of France visited New Caledonia final July and laid out his imaginative and prescient for the Pacific outpost.
“New Caledonia is French as a result of it has chosen to stay French,” Mr. Macron advised a crowd of individuals against independence. “No going again. No stuttering.”
4 many years after the civil warfare ended, nevertheless, pro-independence sentiment and resentment towards French settlers stay sturdy in New Caledonia, which is now semiautonomous.
Within the Eighties, France agreed to carry an independence referendum inside a decade — a guess {that a} rising Kanak center class would select to stay French. As the brand new century dawned, voting was delay for 2 extra many years. However the French authorities agreed to freeze electoral rolls in order that latest arrivals to New Caledonia, who’re considered extra prone to help continued French rule, wouldn’t sway the vote. France additionally agreed to carry three referendums as a substitute of 1, a nod to the potential for violent protests.
Within the first, held in 2018, the pro-independence camp had a surprisingly sturdy exhibiting, garnering 43 p.c of the vote regardless of considerations that New Caledonia’s beleaguered nickel-dependent financial system couldn’t survive with out monetary help from France. Two years later, 47 p.c voted for independence.
The third and final referendum passed off after the coronavirus pandemic, which devastated many Kanak communities. Native mourning customs prohibit political exercise, and Indigenous leaders urged Mr. Macron to delay the 2021 vote. When it went ahead as scheduled, many Kanaks boycotted it in protest, and the vote was overwhelmingly in favor of staying with France.
Professional-independence leaders have referred to as for holding one other vote, however talks with French authorities are at an deadlock. And Mr. Macron’s authorities has backed an modification to the French Structure that may permit some individuals who have moved to New Caledonia since 1998 to vote within the territory, calling it a transfer towards full democracy.
Whereas pro-independence sentiment is longstanding in New Caledonia, the latest string of demonstrations started on Could 4 with a commemoration of the loss of life of Jean-Marie Tjibaou, a Kanak chief who was assassinated by a disaffected nationalist after negotiating the top to the civil warfare. Protests unfold throughout the 140 islands of New Caledonia, which is residence to about 270,000 individuals.
In an interview final yr, Mr. Tjibaou’s son Joël Tjibaou mentioned that France didn’t perceive the depth of feeling within the nation.
“Once you see our nation, you perceive why we’re combating for independence,” he mentioned. “The white individuals got here right here, stole our land, stole our customs, don’t respect us.”
On Monday, France’s decrease home of Parliament debated the constitutional modification, which has already been handed by the Senate. Because it turned clear that the proposal would cross, protests in New Caledonia, particularly these in Noumea, turned violent, in accordance with Adrian Muckle, who teaches historical past at Victoria College of Wellington in New Zealand.
“We’re in a state of civil warfare,” Sonia Backès, the territory’s most distinguished anti-independence politician, wrote to French president Emmanuel Macron on Wednesday. “With out huge and pressing intervention from the state, we are going to lose management of New Caledonia within the coming hours.”
Native authorities imposed a curfew, canceled worldwide flights and mobilized 1,700 regulation enforcement officers. France has since deployed the military and is flying in 1,000 extra cops. The French authorities has declared a state of emergency, put 10 protest leaders underneath home arrest, and banned the social media app TikTok within the territory.
Rioters have killed one police officer and fired on a number of others, in accordance with the French authorities. One other officer was killed by unintentional gunfire. Not less than 64 officers have been injured.
The authorities have mentioned calm has returned to Noumea, however some residents say they’re nonetheless scared to exit.
“It’s too harmful,” Fabrice Valette, who lives within the small city of Paita, to the north of Noumea, together with his companion and 1-year-old son, mentioned on Friday. “We actually don’t know how one can get meals or drinks or drugs.”
Many protesters seem like youngsters and younger adults who’ve hid their identities with masks, three residents mentioned in interviews. At roadblocks and on streets, many protesters are flying the multicolored flag of Kanaky — as New Caledonia is understood within the Indigenous language — amid clouds of smoke from burned-out vehicles and buildings.
The organizer of the protests is a bunch referred to as the Area Motion Coordination Cell, whose leaders mentioned that they didn’t condone violence. Dominique Fochi, a Paris-based chief of the group, warned {that a} French crackdown might backfire.
“We hope that sending extra sources there doesn’t supply technique of repression, which might solely make issues worse,” he mentioned,
The constitutional modification should now be authorized by a joint session within the French Parliament, which is scheduled for June.
On Friday, Roch Wamytan, president of the New Caledonian legislature, dismissed requests by Mr. Macron for talks. He mentioned, “How will you talk about with the president of the French Republic in these circumstances?”
Nicolas Metzdorf, who represents New Caledonia within the French Nationwide meeting, blamed pro-independence leaders for the unrest. He acknowledged there was a danger of a return to civil warfare.
Gerard Darmanin, the French inside minister, mentioned on Thursday that international interference from Azerbaijan had performed a task within the unrest. (Relations between the 2 international locations have been strained by France’s help of Armenia in its territorial dispute with Azerbaijan.)
Mr. Darmanin didn’t present specifics, and Azerbaijan has denied the allegation.
Some have been anxious concerning the escalation of violence in a rustic the place there are a variety of firearms — about one for each 4 residents.
“Everybody owns weapons, so it could possibly worsen in a short time,” mentioned Mr. Valette, the Paita resident. “I feel will probably be very exhausting to unite individuals and be one nation after this.”
Reporting for this story was supported partly by the Pulitzer Heart.
