A chocolate factory and a soda bottling plant caught fire. Molotov cocktails were thrown at police and prisoners took guards hostage. Five people died. As protests against French control erupted in New Caledonia this week, the South Pacific archipelago has experienced its worst violence since civil war decades ago.
“I’m in a state of shock, I can’t move,” Lizzie Carboni, a writer living in the capital Noumea, said by phone as the fourth night of protests began on Thursday. Ms Carboni said when she checked on her parents, her mother told her: “We never wanted to tell you what happened in 1984, but it’s happening again.”
In 1853, France annexed New Caledonia, about 900 miles off the east coast of Australia. The French established a penal colony and, over time, shipped more foreigners to New Caledonia for mining. Rich nickel reserves. This ultimately made the indigenous Kanaks a minority in their own land.
The most serious challenge to French rule occurred in the 1980s, when French troops were ordered to suppress a violent uprising. Dozens of people died in the ensuing clashes. To end the fighting, French authorities agreed to put New Caledonia on the path to independence.
But in recent years, as the competition between the United States and China for influence in the Pacific has intensified, France’s considerations have changed.French officials worry China could gain influence in independent New Caledonia, as it seeks in other southern countries Vanuatu and other Pacific countries and Solomon Islands.
French President Emmanuel Macron visited New Caledonia last July and laid out his vision for the Pacific outpost.
“New Caledonia is French because it chooses to continue its French identity,” Macron told a group of independence opponents. “Won’t go back. No stuttering.”
Yet forty years after the civil war ended, pro-independence sentiment and resentment against French settlers remains strong in now-semi-autonomous New Caledonia.
In the 1980s, France agreed to hold an independence referendum within ten years, betting that the rising Kanak middle class would choose to stay in France. As the new century dawned, the vote was postponed for another twenty years. But French authorities agreed to freeze the electoral roll so that new arrivals from New Caledonia, seen as more likely to support continued French rule, would not affect the vote. France also agreed to hold three referendums instead of one, a nod to the possibility of violent protests.
In the first elections held in 2018, the pro-independence camp performed surprisingly strongly, taking 43% of the vote, despite concerns that New Caledonia’s struggling nickel-dependent economy would not survive without French financial aid Survive. Two years later, 47% voted for independence.
The third and final referendum was held in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, which has devastated many Kanak communities. Local mourning customs prohibit political activity, and indigenous leaders have urged Macron to delay the 2021 vote. When it went ahead as scheduled, many Kanaks boycotted it in protest, and the vote was overwhelming. In favor of staying in France.
Pro-independence leaders have called for another vote, but talks with French authorities have stalled. Macron’s government supports an amendment to the French constitution that would allow some people who have moved to New Caledonia since 1998 to vote in the territory, saying it is a step towards full democracy.
While pro-independence sentiment has a long history in New Caledonia, the latest series of demonstrations began on May 4 to mark the death of Kanak leader Jean-Marie Tjibaou , who was assassinated by a disgruntled nationalist after concluding domestic negotiations. war. The protests spread to New Caledonia’s 140 islands, which have a population of about 270,000.
Mr. Djibau’s son, Joel Djibau, said in an interview last year that France did not understand the depth of the country’s feelings.
“When you see our country, you will understand why we fought for independence,” he said. “White people came here and stole our land, stole our customs and disrespected us.”
On Monday, the lower house of France’s parliament debated the constitutional amendments, which were approved by the Senate. As it became clear that the proposal would be passed, protests in New Caledonia, particularly in Noumea, turned violent, said Adrian Muckel, a history professor at Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand.
“We are in a state of civil war,” Sonia Bacchus, the territory’s most prominent anti-independence politician, wrote to French President Emmanuel Macron on Wednesday. “Without massive and urgent state intervention, we will lose control of New Caledonia in the coming hours.”
Local authorities imposed curfews, canceled international flights and deployed 1,700 law enforcement officers. France has since deployed troops and flown in 1,000 police officers. The French government declared a state of emergency, placed 10 protest leaders under house arrest, and banned the use of social media application TikTok in the country.
According to French authorities, rioters killed one police officer and shot several others. Another officer died from an accidental shooting. At least 64 police officers were injured.
Authorities said calm had returned to Noumea, but some residents said they were still afraid to go out.
“It’s too dangerous,” said Fabrice Valette on Friday, who lives in the small town of Paita, north of Noumea, with his partner and one-year-old son. “We really don’t know how to get food, drink or medicine.”
Three residents said in interviews that many of the protesters appeared to be teenagers and young adults who used masks to hide their identities. At roadblocks and in the streets, many protesters waved the colorful flags of Kanaki, the name for New Caledonia in the Aboriginal language, amid thick smoke from burned cars and buildings.
The leaders of the protest, organized by a group called the Field Action Coordination Group, said they did not condone violence. Dominic Fauci, the group’s Paris-based leader, warned that France’s crackdown could be counterproductive.
“We hope that sending additional resources there will not provide a means of repression, it will just make things worse,” he said.
The constitutional amendment must now be approved by a joint session of the French parliament scheduled for June.
On Friday, Roque Vamitan, president of New Caledonia’s legislature, dismissed Macron’s request for talks. He said: “How can you discuss this with the president of the French Republic in this situation?”
Nicolas Metzdorf, who represents New Caledonia in the French National Assembly, blamed the unrest on pro-independence leaders. He acknowledged the risk of a renewed civil war.
French Interior Minister Gerard Darmanin said on Thursday that foreign interference from Azerbaijan played a role in the unrest. (France supports Armenia in its territorial dispute with Azerbaijan, causing tensions between the two countries.)
Mr Darmanin did not provide specific details and Azerbaijan denied the accusation.
Some worry about an escalation in violence in a country with an abundance of guns – about one for every four residents.
“Everyone owns a gun, so it gets worse quickly,” said Mr. Valette, a Pata resident. “I think it’s going to be very difficult to unite people and become a country after this.”
Reporting in this story was supported in part by the Pulitzer Center.
