By Patrick Decloitre, RNZ Pacific correspondent French Pacific desk
A series of violent incidents and confrontations over the weekend in New Caledonia’s capital Nouméa and its surroundings, causing clashes with law enforcement agencies and several injuries.
On Saturday night, in a bar and night-club in downtown Nouméa, a “Ladies Night” event dedicated to International Women’s Day degenerated into an all-out brawl, involving mostly young customers.
The event was scheduled to end at 2am, but bar owners decided to close at 1am, prompting violent reactions from the young patrons, who started to throw glasses at the DJ, then ransacked the bar.
The incident was recorded and later broadcast on social networks.
“We should have closed at 2am, but shortly after midnight, we felt the pressure was mounting and most of the people were already quite inebriated”, the 1881 establishment owner told local media.
“So we decided to close earlier to avoid people getting more drunk. We stopped the music, that’s when they started to throw glasses to the bar”.
Public brawl outside
Outside, in a parking lot, an estimated “300 to 400 hundred” customers began a public brawl.
Law enforcement units were called and later described themselves as finding “a dangerous situation” — confronted with “hostile” individuals, and having to resort to teargas and stun-balls.
The French High Commission reported during a press conference yesterday that seven people had been injured, including one gendarme and a police officer, in the face of people throwing “bottles, stones and even concrete blocks”.
The situation came back under control at around 2:30 am, officials said.
The High Commission said that at this stage no one had been arrested, but an investigation was underway that could lead to the bar and night club being closed down.
“This is a serious incident . . . but we are not back to the insurrection situation last year”, the French High Commission’s chief-of-staff, Anaïs Aït Mansour, told reporters.
She said a meeting had been called with all of Nouméa’s bar and nightclub owners and managers.
After months of prohibition on the sale of alcoholic beverages, following the violent unrest that started in May 2024, the restrictions were finally lifted only a few weeks ago.
A re-introduction of the restrictive measure was now “under consideration”, Aït Mansour said.
The incident has also prompted political reactions as parties were preparing for the return of French Minister for Overseas Manuel Valls in less than two weeks to try to bring political talks to another level on New Caledonia’s political future.
Politicians warned not to amalgamate
The incidents, widely condemned by the pro-France political groups, were also labelled as “unacceptable” by the major pro-independence Union Calédonienne (UC)-FLNKS party.
In a media statement, UC said these “acts of vandalism and violence committed by inebriated youths” had “nothing to do with the political claims from 13 May 2024, or with the Kanak people’s struggle”.
However, the pro-independence party warned against any attempt to “turn these youths into scapegoats for all of our society’s harms”.
UC said this behaviour could be explained by “a profound ill-being” among “a certain part” of the young Kanak population who felt disenfranchised.
Violent clashes on highway
The weekend was also marred by another violent confrontation with law enforcement services on the territorial road RT1 between the capital Nouméa and the La Tontouta International Airport where motorists were targeted by people throwing stones at them.
The incidents took place early Sunday morning near the Saint-Laurent village, in an area usually referred to as Col de La Pirogue, close to the small town of Païta.
The Gendarmerie Commander, General Nicolas Matthéos, said those actions were from a group of up to 30 individuals under the influence of alcohol.
He said his services were now attempting to talk to traditional chiefs in the area so they could persuade those responsible for these “very aggressive” acts to surrender and be “brought to justice”.
He said four gendarmes had been slightly injured after being hit by stones.
“We had to use stun grenades and during those operations we had to stop all traffic on the RT1″,” he said.
Traffic was interrupted for almost one hour and a squadron of gendarmes remained in place to secure the area.
A judicial inquiry is also underway.
Sandalwood oil factory goes up in flames
Also at the weekend, a sandalwood oil factory went up in flames late on Sunday evening on the island of Maré in the Loyalty Islands group.
Local firemen could not stop the destruction of the small factory’ production and refinery unit.
Another investigation is now underway from Nouméa-based gendarmerie investigators to determine the cause of the fire and whether it was accidental or criminal.
The locally-managed unit was created in 2010.
It is believed to be the world’s third largest producer of high-quality sandalwood essential oil, with international perfume and cosmetics clients such as Dior, Guerlain and Chanel.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
