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Several Killed In New Caledonia Riots

By Stefan J. Bos, Chief International Correspondent Worthy News

PARIS/NOUMEA (Worthy News) – France has declared a state of emergency on its Pacific island of New Caledonia, boosting police deployments and banning the video application TikTok after riots over electoral reform killed at least four people.

The state of emergency, which entered into force at 5 a.m. local time Wednesday and was to last for at least 12 days, came as authorities established that three young indigenous Kanak and a police official died in the clashes.

Under the new measures, authorities have additional powers to ban gatherings and forbid people from moving around the French-ruled island.

Police reinforcements, adding 500 officers to the 1,800 usually present on the island, have been sent after rioters torched vehicles and businesses and looted stores, officials said. Schools have been shut, and the capital already has a curfew.

Rioting broke out over a new bill, adopted by lawmakers in Paris on Tuesday, that will let French residents who have lived in New Caledonia for 10 years vote in provincial elections – a move some local leaders fear will dilute the Kanak vote.

“No violence will be tolerated,” said Prime Minister Gabriel Attal, adding that the state of emergency “will allow us to roll out massive means to restore order.”

He later signed a decree declaring a state of emergency that would last 12 days and announced that French soldiers would be used to secure New Caledonia’s principal port and airport.

BANNING TIKTOK

During riots on France’s mainland last summer, authorities also decided to ban the video app TikTok, which the government said helped rioters organize and amplify the chaos, attracting troublemakers to the streets.

TikTok had no immediate comment.

“More than 130 arrests have been made, and several dozen rioters have been taken into custody and will be brought before the courts,” the French High Commission of the Republic in New Caledonia said in a statement Wednesday.

It comes at a time when French President Emmanuel Macron seeks to reassert his country’s importance in the Pacific region, where China and the United States are vying for influence.

France has a strategic footprint through its overseas territories, which include New Caledonia and French Polynesia.

Lying between Australia and Fiji, New Caledonia is one of several French territories spanning the globe from the Caribbean and Indian Ocean to the Pacific that remain part of France in the post-colonial era.

In the Noumea Accord 1998, France vowed to gradually give more political power to the Pacific island territory of nearly 300,000 people.

THREE REFERENDUMS

Under the agreement, New Caledonia has held three referendums over its ties with France, all rejecting independence. However, independence retains support, particularly among the Indigenous Kanak people.

The Noumea Accord has also meant that New Caledonia’s voter lists have not been updated since 1998.

That means island residents who arrived from mainland France or elsewhere in the past 25 years do not have the right to participate in provincial polls.

The riots also highlighted social tensions on the island: New Caledonia is the world’s number three nickel miner, but residents have been hit by a crisis in the sector, with one in five living under the poverty threshold.

Noumea resident Yoan Fleurot told Reuters news agency in an interview through the video application Zoom that he was staying at home out of respect for the nightly curfew and was very scared for his family.

“I don’t see how my country can recover after this,” Fleurot said, adding he carries a gun during the day when he goes out to film the rioters he called ‘terrorists.’