New Caledonia separatists defy French efforts to unblock roads

French forces smashed through dozens of barricades in a bid to retake the main road to New Caledonia’s airport – Copyright AFP/File ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS, ERIC PIERMONT

Charlotte MANNEVY

Separatists in riot-hit New Caledonia refused Monday to abandon road blocks that have paralysed much of the Pacific archipelago and halted commercial air traffic, defying a major security operation by French forces.

France has sent 1,000 armed police, troops, and national security reinforcements to its overseas territory, a popular holiday destination rocked by seven nights of violence that have left six dead and hundreds injured.

New Caledonia, with a population of about 270,000, has been convulsed since May 13 by the unrest, sparked by French plans to impose new rules that would give tens of thousands of non-indigenous residents voting rights.

Some 600 heavily armed French police and paramilitaries have “neutralised” 76 road blocks on the 60-kilometre (40-mile) route between the capital Noumea and La Tontouta International Airport, officials said.

The airport remains closed to all commercial flights.

Hailing Sunday’s operation as a “success”, the French high commission in New Caledonia said forces would remove burned-out vehicles littering the key route for essential food and material supplies.

Pro-independence, largely Indigenous Kanak activists, said they would not release their chokehold.

– ‘Access will be closed’ –

“We are maintaining our road blocks in place,” said a statement by the so-called Ground Action Coordination Cell, or CCAT, some of whose leaders are under house arrest on suspicion of being behind the riots.

Roadblocks would be closed to all vehicles during night time curfews except for health emergencies and firefighters, the group said.

Indigenous Kanaks had suffered from discrimination for too long, it said, insisting that it sought a peaceful resolution but criticising the French “colonial state” plan to expand voting rights.

AFP journalists said some road blocks that had been taken down by the French security forces were being rebuilt by pro-independence forces, sometimes larger than before.

A fire overnight had reduced a construction firm’s building to cinders. 

A pickup truck drove through one Noumea suburb with about 10 masked and hooded men wielding machetes, AFP correspondents saw.

Anti-riot blast balls, often used to release tear gas or pepper spray, could be heard in one suburb of Noumea during the night, they said. 

– ‘They must be heard’ –

“The islands are on fire, for sure, but we have to remember that they tried to be heard for a long time and it led to nothing,” said one resident, Laloua Savea.

“It had to degenerate for the state to see us, for the politicians to see us,” she said.

“They must be heard, even if they are going about it the wrong way.”

Authorities say about 230 people have been detained while an estimated 3,200 people are either stuck in New Caledonia or unable to return to the archipelago, which lies more than a thousand kilometres (800 miles) east of Australia.

President Emmanuel Macron has called a meeting of his defence and security council for Monday.

On Friday, Prime Minister Gabriel Attal met leaders of the parliamentary parties to discuss whether to extend the state of emergency beyond its initial 12 days.

That would require the approval of both the lower house National Assembly and the upper house Senate.

“Republican order will be re-established whatever the cost,” French government high commissioner Louis Le Franc told reporters in Noumea at the weekend.

If separatists “want to use their arms, they will be risking the worst”, he warned.

The highway is needed to restore supply chains as the archipelago faces shortages of items from groceries to blood for transfusions. “We are starting to run short of food,” Le Franc said.

– Divide over vote reform –

An overnight curfew, state of emergency, ban on TikTok and reinforcements have all failed to stop the unrest.

New Caledonia has been a French territory since the mid-1800s. 

Almost two centuries on, its politics remain dominated by debate about whether the islands should be part of France, autonomous or independent — with opinions split roughly along ethnic lines.

Indigenous Kanaks make up about 40 percent of the population but tend to be poorer and have fewer years of schooling than European Caledonians.

Kanak groups say the latest voting regulations would dilute the Indigenous vote. 

The presidents of four other French overseas territories — La Reunion in the Indian Ocean, Guadeloupe and Martinique in the Caribbean and French Guiana in South America — on Sunday called for the withdrawal of the voting reform in an open letter.

Civil liberties groups have challenged the TikTok ban, with an emergency hearing scheduled at France’s top administrative court in Paris for Tuesday.

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