Emmanuel Macron announced by surprise this Tuesday his intention to travel to New Caledonia, the French archipelago in the Pacific Ocean plunged into serious unrest since May 13 that has cost the lives of six people, four civilians and two gendarmes. The objective of the French president, who had planned to take off at night, is to defuse a crisis that has led the Government to declare a state of emergency, close airports and deploy the armed forces to protect strategic installations.
The adoption by the French Parliament of a constitutional reform that will expand the electoral roll—and make it more difficult for the local population to one day achieve a majority for independence—has inflamed tempers. The protests have led to violence. And in what some testimonies describe as general chaos, with armed civilians, roads and neighborhoods blocked by barricades and the risk of civil confrontation between the population of indigenous origin, the Kanaks, and those of European origin, the Caldoches. The former represent 41% of the population; the latter, 24%.
Macron’s is, literally, a trip to the antipodes. New Caledonia is located 16,500 kilometers from metropolitan France. The president’s flight will last about 24 hours. The physical distance is also mental and allows us to get an idea of the difficulties that Paris has in managing the territory.
The visit, the president’s third to the archipelago since he came to power in 2017, comes when, according to local authorities, the situation is calming after several nights of extreme tension. The Commissioner of the Republic in New Caledonia, Louis Le Franc, even spoke a few days ago of a “situation of insurrection”.
The Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, explained this Tuesday before the National Assembly that there have been 276 arrests since the beginning of the riots and that 84 police and gendarmes have been injured. Australia and New Zealand have begun evacuating tourists who were stranded in New Caledonia by air. The international airport, closed since last week, does not plan to reopen until Saturday at the earliest.
Last week, Minister Darmanin accused Azerbaijan of foreign interference in New Caledonia and of “closing agreements with a part of the independence movement.” He also described the independence group as a “mafia, violent organization that loots businesses and shoots real bullets at the gendarmes.” Christian Tein, head of the CCAT, declared to the local public channel La 1ère: “We condemn the overflows.”
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“It is a youth revolt, it has overwhelmed us,” he explained to the newspaper. Liberation Roch Wamytan, pro-independence president of the New Caledonian Congress and member of the Kanako and Socialist National Liberation Front (FLNKS). “There is an extremely young Kanaka population that massively voted for independence, that experiences the current situation badly, that suffers from institutional violence, that is stigmatized,” he stated.
French law enforcement forces launched an operation on Sunday to retake control of the road that connects the capital, Nouméa, with the airport, located 52 kilometers away. In the operation they opened more than 67 barriers and detained 200 people, as reported this Tuesday in Paris by the spokesperson for the French Government, Prisca Thévenot.
At the same press conference, at the end of the Council of Ministers, Thévenot said that Macron had explained to the ministers his plans to fly that same night to New Caledonia “to set up a mission there.” The president had kept his distance from the crisis and had delegated its management to the Government. He now takes back control.
It is not clear what the “mission” that Macron wants to “install” in New Caledonia will consist of. In recent days he has expressed the desire to open a dialogue between pro-independence supporters and non-independence supporters that would allow finding an alternative to constitutional reform and reducing tension. But he has warned that, if this dialogue does not produce results, before the end of June he will submit the reform to the final vote of Congress, which brings together the National Assembly and the Senate.
Last week, the National Assembly in Paris adopted a bill expanding the so-called electoral body. That is, the number of residents in New Caledonia eligible to vote in provincial elections and possibly in an independence referendum, if there is another.
The electoral body is the crux of many conflicts in this territory colonized in 1853 and inscribed on the UN list of non-autonomous territories pending decolonization. Now the census is made up of people registered before 1998. The reform provides for the registration of those born after this date and those who have lived for more than 10 years, which in theory will swell the non-independence ranks and dilute the influence of those who seek the secession.
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