New Zealand’s Foreign Minister Winston Peters has used a speech in Paris to urge France to keep an open mind about a new path forward for New Caledonia.

He also wants to deepen New Zealand’s relationship with France, and wants a stronger focus from the European country on the Pacific.

Titled “The Path Less Travelled” in a nod to American poet Robert Frost, the half-hour speech was delivered to the French Institute of International Relations to an audience that included dignitaries from the government and the diplomatic corps.

• READ MORE: Mixed reactions to Tjibaou’s election to key Kanak pro-independence party
• UN experts ‘alarmed’ by Kanaky New Caledonia deaths
• Other Kanaky New Caledonia reports

Peters highlighted geopolitical trends: a shift in countries’ focus from rules to power, from economics to security and defence, and from economic efficiencies to resilience and sustainability.

“These shifts present challenges for a small trade-dependent country like New Zealand. Some of these challenges are familiar, but others, those mostly driven by technology, are new,” Peters said.

After speaking about the value of free trade agreements — highlighted by New Zealand’s recent FTA with the European Union — he raised the spectre of security flashpoints, including the South China Sea and Taiwan Strait.

“We are also deeply concerned by North Korea’s evolving nuclear capability and ambition. Those concerns are heightened by its supply of troops to Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine, another flagrant breach of international law and UN resolutions.”

‘Relentless securitisation of the Pacific’
“The relentless securitisation of the Pacific and a breakdown in long-standing cooperation norms in Antarctica mean New Zealand cannot stay out of the way of geopolitics.”

He pointed to New Zealand’s foreign policy agenda, including a focus on South East Asia and India, neighbours in the Pacific, tackling multi-country problems through multilateral discussion, setting up new multilateral groupings to navigate “impasses or blockages”, and promoting the coalition’s goal of boosting export values through diplomacy.

“To achieve this ambitious agenda, we knew we needed to give more energy, more urgency, and a sharper focus to three inter-connected lines of effort: Investing in our relationships, growing our prosperity, and strengthening our security.

He urged France to deepen the relationship with New Zealand, helping advance Pacific priorities and protecting the international rules-based order, drawing on France’s interest and involvement in the region, as well as its diplomatic, development, military and humanitarian supports.

“As a country, we’ve got the tools to make a big impact . . . Pacific regionalism sits at the core of New Zealand’s Pacific approach … but New Zealand cannot meet these needs alone,” he said.

“We will increasingly look to cooperate with our traditional partners like France and other close partners who share our values and interests. We want to deepen our cooperation with France to advance Pacific priorities, to strengthen existing regional architecture, to protect the international rules-based order, and to ensure the prosperity of future Pacific generations.”

If the French needed encouragement, Peters pointed to the shared values that underpin the partnership, saying the two countries “share the same democratic pulse”, saying the fraternité — brotherhood — of France’s motto evoked a sense of moral obligation for governments “to protect all of their their citizens and provide them with the conditions to prosper”.

New Caledonia at ‘turning point’
Peters soon turned to the deadly riots in New Caledonia, saying New Zealand welcomed the efforts to restore security and help get foreigners including New Zealanders out.

The agreements between Paris and Nouméa in the 1980s and 1990s, he said, represented the road less travelled, “one where France and New Caledonia walked together”.

“But now, in 2024, that road has become overgrown and blocked by choices already made and actions already taken.”

The archipelago remains in something of a standoff after the riots that broke out in May over calls for independence.

France retains control of the military, but Fiji’s Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka — after a long-delayed visit alongside his Cook Islands and Tonga and the Solomon Islands Foreign Minister — this month offered to deploy a peacekeeping force under the Pacific Policing Initiative.

Peters urged France to think carefully about its next steps, and keep an open mind about the path forward.

“That in Nouméa and Paris, the key to restore the spirit of earlier understandings is for all parties to have open minds about their next crucial choice, about a new path forward, because France and the people of New Caledonia stand at a new turning point,” he said.

“Rather than dwell on old questions, we think there is an opening for everyone who cares about New Caledonia to use our imaginations to think of a new question.

“There are all sorts of constitutional models out there, including across the Pacific. For instance, New Zealand has learned from its experience of having different types of constitutional relationships with realm countries — the Cook Islands, Niue, and Tokelau.

“Our realm relationships are stable and mutually beneficial, so enduring, and the constitutional mechanisms provide for maximum self-determination while ensuring that New Zealand’s security and defence interests remain protected.”

Peters said New Zealand deeply respected France’s role in the region, “and we are in no doubt that the economic might of France is essential to reestablishing a vibrant New Caledonian economy”.

“We stand ready to help in any way we can, and we trust France appreciates . . .  ‘there is nothing better than the encouragement of a good friend’, because that is the animating spirit behind our words today.”

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

French police have shot and killed two men in New Caledonia, stoking tensions with pro-independence groups days ahead of a public holiday marking France’s annexation of the Pacific archipelago.

The pro-independence FLNKS (Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front) decried the deaths yesterday as “barbaric and humiliating methods” used by French police resulting in a “summary execution” and called for an independent investigation.

The shootings bring the number of deaths in the Pacific territory to 13 since unrest began in May over French government changes to a voting law that indigenous Kanak people feared would compromise their push for independence.

• READ MORE: France boosts Pacific security forces as symbolic ‘September 24’ date looms
• Other Kanaky New Caledonia crisis reports

The men were killed in a confrontation between French gendarmerie and Kanak protesters in the tribal village of Saint Louis, a heartland of the independence movement near the capital Nouméa.

Public Prosecutor Yves Dupas said in a media statement the police operation using armoured vehicles was to arrest suspects for attempted murder of officers and for armed robbery on the Saint Louis road, with “nearly 300 shots noted in recent months.”

“The two deceased persons were the subject of a search warrant, among a total of 13 persons implicated, sought and located in the Saint Louis tribe,” Dupas said, adding they had failed to respond to summonses.

Dupas ordered two investigations, one over the attempted murders of police officers and the second into “death without the intention of causing it relating to the use of weapons by the GIGN gendarmerie (elite police tactical unit) and the consequent death of the two persons sought”.

Push back ‘peaceful solution’
Union Calédonienne (UC) secretary-general Dominique Fochi said yesterday the actions of French security forces “only worsen the situation on the ground and push back the prospect of a peaceful solution.”

“The FLNKS denounces the barbaric and humiliating methods used by the police, who did not hesitate to carry out a summary execution of one of the young people in question,” Fochi read from a FLNKS statement at a press conference.

“We demand an immediate de-escalation of military interventions in the south of our country, particularly in Saint Louis, where militarisation and pressure continue on the population, which can only lead to more human drama.”

The statement called for an immediate “independent and impartial investigation to shed light on the circumstances of these assassinations in order to establish responsibilities”.

Prosecutor Dupas said police came under fire from up to five people during the operation in Saint Louis and responded with two shots.

“The first shot from the policeman hit a man, aged 30, positioned as a lone sniper, who was wounded in the right flank. The second shot hit a 29-year-old man in the chest,” Dupas said, adding three rifles and ammunition had been seized.

One of the men died at the scene, while the other escaped and later died after arriving at a local hospital.

Kanaky-Nouvelle-Calédonie : Une colonie française

Samir vous raconte l’histoire de la résistance kanak et vous explique pourquoi la France veut absolument garder la main sur cet archipel !

La vidéo pic.twitter.com/gPCZFmlCGH

— Paroles d’Honneur (@ParolesDHonneur) September 18, 2024

Deaths raise Citizenship Day tensions
The deaths are likely to raise tensions ahead of Citizenship Day on Tuesday, which will mark the 171st anniversary of France’s takeover of New Caledonia.

For many Kanaks, the anniversary is a reminder of France’s brutal colonisation of the archipelago that is located roughly halfway between Australia and Fiji.

Paris has beefed up security ahead of Citizenship Day, with High Commissioner Louis Le Franc saying nearly 7000 French soldiers, police and gendarmes are now in New Caledonia.

“I have requested reinforcements, which have been granted,” he told local station Radio Rythme Bleu last week.

“This has never been seen before, even during the toughest times of the events in 1984 and 1988 — we have never had this,” he said, referring to a Kanak revolt in the 1980s that only ended with the promise of an independence referendum.

Authorities have also imposed a strict curfew from 6 pm to 6 am between September 21-24, restricted alcohol sales, the transport of fuel and possession of firearms.

Kanaks make up about 40 percent of New Caledonia’s 270,000 people but are marginalised in their own land — they have lower incomes and poorer health outcomes than Europeans who make up a third of the population and occupy most positions of power in the territory.

UN decolonisation process
New Caledonia voted by modest majorities to remain part of France in referendums held in 2018 and 2020 under a UN-mandated decolonisation process. Three votes were part of the Noumea Accord to increase Kanaks’ political power following deadly violence in the 1980s.

A contentious final referendum in 2021 was overwhelmingly in favour of continuing with the status quo.

However, supporters of independence have rejected its legitimacy due to very low turnout — it was boycotted by the independence movement — and because it was held during a serious phase of the covid-19 pandemic, which restricted campaigning.

Earlier this year, the president of Union Calédonienne proposed Septemnber 24 as the date by which sovereignty should be declared from France. The party later revised the date to 2025, but the comments underscored how self-determination is firmly in the minds of local independence leaders.

The unrest that erupted in May was the worst outbreak of violence in decades and has left the New Caledonian economy on the brink of collapse, with damages estimated to be at least 1.2 billion euros (US $1.3 billion).

Some 35,000 people are out of a job.

Copyright ©2015-2024, BenarNews. Republished with the permission of BenarNews.

Fears of potential unrest on New Caledonia’s symbolic September 24 date have prompted stronger restrictions in New Caledonia and the deployment of large numbers of French security personnel.

The date originally marked what France termed the “taking of possession” of New Caledonia in 1853.

Since 2004, what the pro-independence Kanak movement has been calling for years “a day of mourning”, was consensually renamed “Citizenship Day” by the local government in a move to foster a sense of inclusiveness and common destiny.

• READ MORE: Other Kanaky New Caledonia crisis reports

But since violent and deadly riots erupted four months ago, on May 13, the date has been mentioned several times by the pro-independence movement’s Union Calédonienne (UC) party.

Since the riots emerged, UC leader Daniel Goa publicly claimed he intended to use the date to declare unilaterally the French Pacific archipelago’s independence.

While the overall situation of New Caledonia has been slowly returning to some kind of normalcy and despite some pockets of resistance and roadblocks, including in the Greater Nouméa area, the French High commission on Friday announced a package of restrictions, combining the current curfew (10pm to 5am) with new measures.

‘I am being prudent’
High Commissioner Louis Le Franc told local media: “There is considerable force to ensure that law and order will prevail . . .  I am being prudent.

“I have asked for reinforcements and I have got them”, he told local anti-independence radio RRB on Friday.

He said it is more than what was ever sent to New Caledonia during the hardest moments of 1984-1988 when the territory was in a state of insurrection.

Le Franc detailed that the security contingent deployed would comprise “almost 7000” personnel, including mobile gendarmes, police (to “protect sensitive areas”) and military.

General Nicolas Mathéos, who heads the French gendarmes in New Caledonia, also stressed he was determined.

Speaking on Monday to local TV Caledonia, he said the reinforcements came as the French) state “has put in every necessary means to ensure this 24 September and the days before that take place in a climate of serenity”.

“New Caledonia now needs serenity. It needs to rebuild. It needs to believe in its future after this violent crisis,” he said.

Numbers ‘in control’
“We will be in numbers to hold the territory, to control it, including on the roads, so that this day is a day of peace.

“Because no one wants to go through again the nightmare of May.”

The general said reinforcements had already arrived.

“For the gendarmerie, this is almost 40 units mobilised.

“Public order will be maintained, on September 24, before September 24 and after  September 24.”

The curfew itself, which had been gradually relaxed over the past few weeks, is now returning to a stricter 6pm-6am duration for the whole of New Caledonia, specifically concerning the September 21-24 period (a long weekend).

Additional measures include a ban on all public meetings within Nouméa and its outskirts.

Firearms, alcohol banned
Possession, transportation and sale of firearms, ammunition and alcohol also remain prohibited until September 24.

Fuel distribution and transportation is subject to restrictions, the French High Commission said in a release on Friday.

High Commissioner Louis Le Franc told local media that the measures were taken due to the current circumstances and the appearance of some posts seen on social media which “call on public order disturbances on 24 September 2024”.

“Under those circumstances, a ban on circulation…is a measure that can efficiently prevent disruption of public order,” he said.

The restrictions, however, do not apply to persons who can provide evidence that they need to move within the prohibited hours for professional, medical emergency, domestic or international air and sea travel reasons.

Meanwhile, a bipartisan delegation from New Caledonia is scheduled to travel to Paris next week to meet high officials, including the presidents of both Houses of Parliament, French media has reported.

New Caledonia’s delegation is scheduled to travel from September 23 to October 4.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

The high-level Pacific mission to New Caledonia will be a three person-led delegation and it is still expected to happen prior to the Pacific Islands Forum Leaders (PIF) Meeting in Tonga on August 26, says PIF chair Mark Brown.

Brown, who is also the Cook Islands Prime Minister, made the comment at the PIF Foreign Ministers Meeting on Friday following French President Emmanuel Macron approving the mission.

“It’s important that everyone can assess the situation together with [France],” the French Ambassador to the Pacific, Véronique Roger-Lacan, told RNZ Pacific on Friday.

• READ MORE: Macron gives Pacific mission to Kanaky New Caledonia green light, says diplomat
• Other Kanaky New Caledonia crisis reports

Brown said Tonga’s Prime Minister, Hu’akavameiliku Siaosi Sovaleni, may not be on the trip “because of pending obligations in preparation for the leaders meeting”.

“In which case the incoming troika member, Prime Minister of Solomon Islands [Jeremiah Menele], would be the next person,” he said.

“It will be a three-person delegation that will be leading the delegation to New Caledonia and the expectation is it will be done before the leaders meeting at the end of this month.”

Brown and Fiji Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka will both be on the mission.

‘Sensitive political dimensions’
“The Forum is very mindful of the nature of the relationship that New Caledonia as a member of the Forum has, but also France’s relationship with New Caledonia currently as a territory of France.

“There are some sensitive political dimensions that must be taken into account, but we feel that our sentiments as a Forum, firstly, is to try and reduce the incidents of violence that has taken place over the last few months and also to call for dialogue as the way forward.”

He said the decision around timing of the trip is up to the troika members — current chair, previous chair and incoming chair.

Meanwhile, New Zealand’s Foreign Affairs Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters prior to the announcement from France, said it was still to be worked out what role New Zealand would play on the New Caledonia mission.

“We are seriously concerned to ensure that the long-term outcome is a peaceful solution but also where the economics of New Caledonia is sustained, that’s important,” he said.

Peters said he expected that over time there would be more than one delegation sent to New Caledonia.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

France has approved a high-level Pacific “fact-finding mission” to New Caledonia to gather information from all sides involved in the ongoing crisis.

“We are welcoming a mission of the troika for a fact-finding mission in New Caledonia before the [Pacific Islands Forum Leaders Meeting],” the French Ambassador to the Pacific, Véronique Roger-Lacan, told RNZ Pacific in an exclusive interview today.

“I gave a letter to the [PIF] Secretary-General Baron Waqa and Prime Minister Mark Brown, the chair.

• READ MORE: Other Kanaky New Caledonia crisis reports

“It’s a good idea. It’s important that everyone can assess the situation together with [France].”

She said it was important that dialogue continued.

“We repeat the fact that these riots were conducted by a handful of people who contest democratic, transparent and fair processes, and that the French state has restored security, and is rebuilding and organising the reconstruction [of New Caledonia]. ”

Forum leaders wrote to French President Emmanuel Macron last month, requesting to send a Forum Ministerial Committee to Nouméa to gather information from all sides involved in the ongoing crisis.

The confirmation comes as the Forum foreign ministers are meeting in Suva, ahead of the 53rd PIF Leaders Summit on Tonga at the end of the month.

‘We are family’
Melanesian Spearhead Group chairperson and Vanuatu Prime Minister Charlot Salwai backs independence for New Caledonia through a democratic process.

“It’s a concern … and we decided to have a mission into New Caledonia to talk to the both sides,” Salwai said.

It has been almost three months since violence broke out in the French territory, killing 10 people, and causing tens of millions of dollars in damage to the economy.

Salwai told RNZ Pacific he had supported the independence of Melanesian countries for a long time.

“It’s not only a [PIF] member and neighbour, but we are family,” Salwai said.

“We are also for a long time Vanuatu support independence of Melanesian countries.

“We’re not going to interfere in the politics in France, but politically and morally, we support the independence of New Caledonia. Of course, it has to go through democratic process like a referendum, they are the ones to decide.”

Pacific leaders want to send a high-level Pacific mission to Nouméa before the end of the month.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

France is “checking” whether a high-level mission to New Caledonia will be possible prior to or after the Pacific Islands Forum Leaders’ Summit in Tonga at the end of the month.

Forum leaders have written to French President Emmanuel Macron requesting to send a Forum Ministerial Committee to Nouméa to gather information from all sides involved in the ongoing crisis.

The French Ambassador to the Pacific, Véronique Roger-Lacan, will be in Suva on Friday for the Forum Foreign Ministers Meeting to “continue the dialogue . . . and explain the facts”.

• READ MORE: Other Kanaky New Caledonia unrest reports

She told RNZ Pacific that sending a mission to New Caledonia was a request and it was up to the PIF to decide if “anything is realistic”.

“Paris is checking whether it can be before the summit or after. We still need information,” she said.

Asked if France was open to the idea of such a visit by Pacific leaders, Roger-Lacan said: “Paris is always open for dialogue.”

On Monday, the incoming PIF chair and Tonga’s Prime Minister, Hu’akavameiliku Siaosi Sovaleni, confirmed he was still waiting to “receive any notification from Paris”.

“It’s very important for the Pacific Islands Forum to visit New Caledonia before the leaders meeting,” he said.

But Roger-Lacan said it is up to Paris to decide.

“New Caledonia is French territory and it is the State which decides on who enters the French territory and when and how.”

It has been almost three months now since violent unrest broke out in Nouméa after an amendment to the French constitution that would voter eligibility in New Caledonia’s local elections, which the pro-independence groups said would marginalise the indigenous Kanaks.

French security forces are still working on removing roadblocks, mainly in the capital Nouméa and its outskirts.

The death toll stands at 10 — eight civilians and two gendarmes. Senior pro-independence leaders who were charged for instigating the civil unrest are in jail in mainland France awaiting trial.

It is estimated over 800 buildings and businesses have been looted and burnt down by rioters.

There have been reports that people were leaving the territory for good in the aftermath of the unrest.

“There are lots of industries that have closed because of the burning and of the riots, and maybe those people are not sure that anything will reopen.

“When there is a place which is not worth investing anymore people change places. It’s normal life.”

She slammed the Pacific media for “not being very balanced” with their reports on the New Caledonia situation.

“Apparently, there have been people in the Pacific briefed by one side, not by all the sides, and they have to hear all the points of view.”

Saint-Louis still not under control
She said security was now “almost back”.

“There is one last pocket of of instability, which is the Saint-Louis community and there are 16,000 New Caledonian people who still cannot move freely within that area because there is  so many unrest.

“But otherwise, security has been brought back,” she added.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

A Kanak great chief has announced his resignation from New Caledonia’s customary Senate.

Hippolyte Sinewami Htamumu once presided over the 16-member traditional Senate of chiefs, which was set up as part of the implementation of the Nouméa Accord signed in 1998.

Sinewami, in announcing his resignation, said he wanted to denounce what he termed “inefficiency” and the “politicisation” of the Senate.

• READ MORE: Other Kanak independence reports

The institution is presented as being dedicated to New Caledonia’s indigenous Kanaks issues, including affairs related to customs, land and identity.

But Sinewami said one of the motivations leading to his resignation was that the Senate was not representative of all of New Caledonia’s chiefly areas; and that it was also too dependent on New Caledonia’s government and its Congress (Parliament).

“So now, more or less, it is as if it was just a government department because we’re depending on the government,” he told public broadcaster NC la Première TV.

The 47-year-old chief also said the institution had remained “silent” since violent unrest and riots broke out in the French Pacific archipelago and were still ongoing since May 13.

Sinewami, himself a great chief of the La Roche district (on Maré island, part of the Loyalty Islands group, north-east of New Caledonia’s main island) is also the leader of an alternate chiefly assembly, the Inaat ne Kanaky (Kanaky Great Council of Chiefs), which he set up in late 2022.

He also said many in the indigenous Kanak community believed that “the trust is no longer there, whether at the level of the customary institutions or at the level of our politicians”.

Widening Senate rift
“I didn’t see myself pursuing the work I have started with the youths while still being a member of such an institution,” he said, putting emphaisis on what is locally described as a widening rift within the customary Senate.

He called for New Caledonia’s institutions to ensure decisions made on the traditional level were “taken into account”, including in future political talks on New Caledonia’s long-term future.

A “Kanak people’s general assembly” is scheduled to be held on September 24, which, symbolically, is also the date in 1853 when France officially “took possession” of the territory.

Future talks: challenging politicians and France
Sinewami told local media that in view of the September meeting, his Inaat Ne Kanaky movement was now working to “reaffirm and reappropriate” Kanak rights.

“So September 24 is the declaration of sovereignty of the chiefdoms . . . This includes challenging the [French] state and even our elected politicians here, so that there is a place for our traditional people in future discussions.

“It is important that our voice is represented.”

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

No progress has been made in sending a UN human rights mission to Indonesia’s Papuan provinces despite the appointment of Fiji and Papua New Guinea’s prime ministers to negotiate the visit.

Pacific Island leaders have for more than a decade requested the UN’s involvement over reported abuses as the Indonesian military battles with the West Papua independence movement.

The latest UN Human Rights Committee report on Indonesia in March was highly critical and raised concerns about extrajudicial killing, excessive use of force and enforced disappearances involving indigenous Papuans.

• READ MORE: Other West Papua decolonisation reports

Fiji’s Sitiveni Rabuka and Papua New Guinea’s James Marape were appointed by the Melanesian Spearhead Group last year as special envoys to push for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights’ visit directly with Indonesia’s president but so far to no avail.

“We have not been able to negotiate terms for an OHCHR visit to Papua,” Commissioner Volker Türk’s office in Geneva said in a statement to BenarNews.

“We remain very concerned about the situation in the region, with some reports indicating a significant increase in violent incidents and civilian casualties in 2023.

“We stress the importance of accountability for security forces and armed groups operating in Papua and the importance of addressing the underlying grievances and root causes of these conflicts.”

Formal invitation
Indonesia issued a formal invitation to the OHCHR in 2018 after Pacific leaders from Vanuatu, Solomon Islands, Tuvalu, Tonga and Marshall Islands for years repeatedly called out the human rights abuses at the UN General Assembly and other international fora.

The Pacific Islands Forum — the regional intergovernmental organisation of 18 nations — has called on Indonesia since 2019 to allow the mission to go ahead.

Indonesia’s military offered a rare apology in March after video emerged of soldiers repeatedly slashing a Papuan man with a bayonet while he was forced to stand in a water-filled drum.

The latest UN report highlights “systematic reports about the use of torture and other forms of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or ill-treatment in places of detention, in particular on Indigenous Papuans” and limited access to information about investigations conducted, individuals prosecuted and sentences.

In recent months there have been several deadly clashes in the region with many thousands reportedly left displaced after fleeing the fighting.

In June Indonesia was accused of exploiting a visit to Papua by the MSG director general to portray the region as “stable and conducive”, undermining efforts to secure Türk’s visit.

Invitation ‘still standing’
Siti told BenarNews the invitation to the UN “is still standing” while attempts are made to find the “best time (to) suit both sides.”

After years of delays the Melanesian Spearhead Group (MSG) — whose members are Fiji, Vanuatu, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands and New Caledonia’s Kanak independence movement — appointed the two prime ministers last November to negotiate directly.

A state visit by Marape to Indonesia last week left confusion over what discussions there were over human rights in the Papuan provinces or if the UN visit was raised.

PNG’s prime minister said last Friday that, on behalf of the MSG and his Fijian counterpart, he spoke with incumbent Indonesian President Joko Widodo and president-elect Parbowo Subianto and they were “very much sensitive to the issues of West Papua”.

“Basically we told him we’re concerned on human rights issues and (to) respect their culture, respect the people, respect their land rights,” Marape told a press conference on his return to Port Moresby in response to questions from BenarNews.

He said Prabowo indicated he would continue Jokowi’s policies towards the Papuan provinces and had hinted at “a moratorium or there will be an amnesty call out to those who still carry guns in West Papua”.

During Marape’s Indonesian visit, the neighbours acknowledged their respective sovereignty, celebrated the signing of several cross-border agreements and that the “relationship is standing in the right space”.

Human rights ‘not on agenda’
Siti from the Office of the President afterwards told BenarNews there were no discussions regarding the UN visit during the meeting between Marape and Jokowi and “human rights issues in Papua were not on the agenda.”

Further BenarNews enquiries with the President’s office about the conflicting accounts went unanswered.

Indonesia is an associate member of the MSG and the ULMWP has observer status. Neither have voting rights.

“That is part of the mandate from the leaders, that is the moral obligation to raise whether it is publicly or face-to-face because there are Papuans dying under the eyes of the Pacific leaders over the past 60 years,” president of the pro-independence United Liberation Movement of West Papua (ULMWP), Benny Wenda, told BenarNews.

“We are demanding full membership of the MSG so we can engage with Indonesia as equals and find solutions for peace.”

Decolonisation in the Pacific has been placed very firmly back on the international agenda after protests in the French territory of Kanaky New Caledonia in May turned violent leaving 10 people dead.

Kanaky New Caledonia riots
Riots erupted after indigenous Kanaks accused France of trying to dilute their voting bloc in New Caledonia after a disputed independence referendum process ended in 2021 leaving them in French hands.

Meeting in Japan late last week, MSG leaders called for a new referendum and the PIF secured agreement from France for a fact-finding mission to New Caledonia.

While in Tokyo for the meeting, Rabuka was reported by Islands Business as saying he would also visit Indonesia’s president with Marape “to discuss further actions regarding the people of West Papua”.

An independence struggle has simmered in Papua since the early 1960s when Indonesian forces invaded the region, which had remained under separate Dutch administration after Indonesia’s 1945 declaration of independence.

Indonesia argues it incorporated the comparatively sparsely populated and mineral rich territory under international law, as it was part of the Dutch East Indies empire that forms the basis for its modern borders.

Indonesian control was formalised in 1969 with a UN-supervised referendum in which little more than 1,000 Papuans were allowed to vote. Papuans say they were denied the right to decide their own future and are now marginalised in their own land.

Indonesia steps up ‘neutralising’ efforts
Indonesia in recent years has stepped up its efforts to neutralise Pacific support for the West Papuan independence movement, particularly among Melanesian nations that have ethnic and cultural links.

“Indonesia is increasingly engaging with the Pacific neighboring countries in a constructive way while respecting the sovereignty of each member,” Theofransus Litaay, senior advisor of the Executive Office of the President told BenarNews.

“Papua is always the priority and programme for Indonesia in the attempt to strengthen its position as the Pacific ‘veranda’ of Indonesia.”

The Fiji and PNG leaders previously met Jokowi, whose second five-year term finishes in October, on the sidelines of a global summit in San Francisco in November.

The two are due to report back on their progress at the annual MSG meeting scheduled for next month.

“If time permits, where we both can go back and see him on these issues, then we will go but I have many issues to attend to here,” Marape said in Port Moresby on Friday.

Copyright ©2015-2024, BenarNews. Republished with permission of BenarNews.

SPECIAL REPORT: Samidoun

On Friday, July 5, France announced the continued provisional detention on mainland France of 5 Kanak defendants, out of seven pro-independence “leaders” who had been deported from Kanaky New Caledonia on June 23.

The subsequent announcements of the arrest of 11 pro-independence activists, including 9 provisional detentions (including Joël Tjibaou and Gilles Jorédié, incarcerated in Camp Est) and 7 incarcerations in mainland France (Christian Tein, Frédérique Muliava, Brenda Wanabo-Ipeze, Dimitri Tein Qenegei, Guillaume Vama, Steve Unë and Yewa Waethane), more than 17,000 kilometres from their homeland, revived the mobilisations that had begun a month earlier as part of the fight against the plan to “unfreeze” the Kanaky electoral body.

Suspended after President Emmanuel Macron announced the dissolution of the National Assembly, this project actually aims to reverse the achievements of the Nouméa Accords signed in 1998.

• READ MORE:  PIF hopes to send delegation to New Caledonia, says Forum chair
• Other Kanaky New Caledonia crisis reports

It is part of the strategy of strengthening French colonialism in Kanaky by extending the ability to vote on local matters, including independence referandums, to an even greater number of settlers, making the indigenous Kanaks a de facto minority at the ballot box.

On July 11, 10 Centaur armoured vehicles, 15 fire trucks, a dozen all-terrain military armoured vehicles and numerous army trucks were landed by ship in Kanaky, where the population remains under curfew.

This entire sequence bears witness to the manner in which France, through its colonial administration, deploys a repressive security arsenal that on the one hand protects the settlers on the land and their reactionary militias, and on the other, attempts to destroy the country’s Kanak independence movement.

Imprisonment and incarceration are a weapon of choice in this overall colonial strategy.

Imprisonment is one of the key weapons of choice in colonial strategies to try to stifle independence and national liberation struggles, from the Zionist regime in Palestine to allied imperialist countries and colonial empires such as France.

While the figures are incomparable due to differences between the populations and conditions, in the West Bank, according to Stéphanie Latte Abdallah, one in three Palestinians has experienced one or more incarcerations during their life since 1967, or 35 percent of the population, while in Kanaky, the Nouméa prison, known as Camp Est, is populated by 95 percent Kanaks, while they represent only 39 to 43 percent of the Caledonian population.

Nicknamed “the island of oblivion” by the prisoners, the Camp Est prison locks up many young Kanaks excluded from the economic, educational and health systems, and symbolises the French colonial continuum, especially as the building partly occupies the space of the former French penal colony imposed there.

Silence of sociologists
Few studies exist of this over-incarceration of the Kanak population, and as Hamid Mokadem reminds us:

“The silence of sociologists and demographers on ethno-cultural inequalities is inversely proportional to the chatter of anthropologists on Kanak customs and culture.”

The incarceration rate is significantly higher than in mainland France, so much so that a new prison has been built.

The Koné detention center, and a project to replace Camp Est was announced in February 2024 by the Minister of Justice. He promised a 600-bed facility (compared to the 230 cells available at Camp Est) that would emerge after a construction project estimated at 500 million euros (NZ$908 million).

This is the largest investment by the French state on Kanak soil, a deadly promise that at the same time reaffirms France’s imperialist project in the Pacific, driven by its financial and geopolitical interests to retain its colonial properties there.

While waiting for this large-scale prison project, new cells have been fitted out in containers on which a double mesh roof has been installed, many without windows, and where the conditions of incarceration are even harsher than in the other sections of the prison, including those for men, women and minors, pre-trial detainees and those who have been convicted and sentenced.

The over-representation of the Kanak population has only increased, since incarceration has been one of the mechanisms through which the French government attempts to stem the movement against the plan to “unfreeze” and expand the electoral body, with 1139 arrests since mid-May.

The penalty of deportation
Local detention was supplemented by another penalty directly inherited from the Code de l’Indigénat: the penalty of deportation.

On June 23, after the announcement of the arrest of 7 Kanak independence activists in metropolitan France, the population learned that they were going to be deported 17,000 km from their homes.

A plane was waiting to transfer them to metropolitan France during their pretrial detention, all seven of them dispersed across the prisons of Dijon, Mulhouse, Bourges, Blois, Nevers, Villefranche and Riom.

This deportation of activists in the context of pre-trial detention directly recalls the events of 1988, and more broadly the way in which prison and removal were used in a colonial context.

From the 19th century and the deportation of Toussaint Louverture of Haiti to France, thousands of Algerians arrested during the uprisings against the French colonisation of Algeria at the same time as the detention of the prisoners of the Paris Commune in 1871, the Vietnamese of Hanoi in 1913, were deported to Kanaky or other colonies such as Guyana.

More recently, the Algerian revolutionaries, were massively incarcerated in metropolitan colonial prisons. From a principle inherited from the indigénat, and although today we have moved from an administrative decision to a judicial decision, the practice of deportation remains the same.

Particularly used in the context of anti-colonial resistance movements, the deportation of Kanak prisoners to metropolitan colonial prisons has been used on this scale since 1988 in Kanaky.

Ouvéa cave massacre
After the massacre of 19 Kanak independence fighters who had taken police officers prisoner in the Ouvéa cave, activists still alive were imprisoned, then deported, then released as part of the Matignon-Oudinot Accords.

Twenty six Kanak prisoners came to populate the prisons of the Paris region while they were still in preventive detention — while awaiting their trials and therefore presumed innocent, as is the case today for the CCAT activists currently incarcerated.

In the 1980s, French prisons were shaken by major revolts, particularly against the racism of the guards, who were mostly affiliated with the then-nascent Front National (FN), and more broadly against the penal policy of the Mitterrand left and the massively expanding length of sentences imposed at the time.

In 1988, as former prisoners wrote afterwards, some made a point of showing their solidarity with the Kanaks by sharing their clothes and food with them.

Because many of the activists were transferred in T-shirts, shorts and flip-flops, in trying conditions, with their hands cuffed during the 24-hour journey, underhand repression techniques of the Prison Administration that are still in force.

Similar deportation conditions were described by Christian Téin, spokesperson for the CCAT incarcerated in the isolation wing of the Mulhouse-Lutterbach Penitentiary Center. The  shock of incarceration is all the more violent.

Added to this is the pain of the forced separation of parents and children, which is found not only in the current situation in metropolitan France but also in Palestine. Also there is great difficulty in finding loved ones, in attempting to find out which prisons they are in, or even if they are currently detained, continually encountering administrative violence, with the absence of information and the cruelty of official figures.

Orchestrated psychological impact
All this is orchestrated so that the psychological impact, in the long term, aims to induce the prisoners and also their families to stop fighting.

At the time of the events in Ouvéa, the uprooting of independence activists from their lands to lock them up in mainland France was commonplace, and the Kanak detainees joined those from the Caribbean Revolutionary Alliance such as Luc Reinette and Georges Faisans, incarcerated in Île-de-France during the 1980s alongside Corsican and Basque prisoners.

Since then, this had only happened once, in the context of the uprisings in Guadeloup in 2021, where several local figures, mostly community activists, had been deported and then incarcerated in mainland France and Martinique in an attempt to stifle the revolts in which a large number of Guadeloupean youth were mobilised.

Here again, we could draw a parallel with Palestine. As Assia Zaino points out, since the 2000s, the incarceration of Palestinians has systematically been synonymous with being torn away from their families and loved ones.

Zionist prisons, located within the Palestinian territories colonised in 1948, “are integrated into the civil prison system [. . . ] and entry bans on Israeli soil are frequently imposed on the families of detainees for security reasons,” which in fact aims to attack the relatives of detainees and destabilise the national liberation struggle.

From prison, the struggle continues
This mass incarceration is confronted by the powerful presence of prisoners as symbols of courage and resistance.

We know that in Palestine, as during the Algerian war of national liberation, incarceration is an opportunity to learn from one’s people, to forge national revolutionary consciousness but also to continue the struggle, very concretely, by mobilising against incarceration.

Because the Palestinian prisoners’ movement has transformed the colonial prison into a school of revolution: each political party has a prison branch whose political bureau or leadership is made up of imprisoned leaders.

These branches have real weight in the decisions taken outside the walls, and they are the ones responsible for leading the struggle in the colonial prisons, in particular by declaring collective hunger strikes and developing alliances of struggle that can mobilise several thousand prisoners, but also for organising the daily life of revolutionaries in prison.

It was this movement of prisoners that played a major role in driving the Palestinian resistance groups to unite under a unified command with the total liberation of historic Palestine as their compass, and to overcome internal contradictions.

Historically, the prisoners also constituted a significant part the most radical elements of the Palestinian revolution, notably by massively refusing any negotiation with the Zionist state at the time when the disastrous Oslo Accords were being prepared.

Resistance in colonial prisons can also take cultural forms, as illustrated by the very rich Palestinian prison literature, composed of literary works written in secret and smuggled out by prisoners to bear witness to the outside world of the vitality of their ideals, their struggle and the conditions of detention.

Courage of the children
An example is Walid Daqqah, a renowned writer and one of the longest-held Palestinian prisoners, who was martyred on 7 April 2024 during his 38th year of detention in colonial prisons.

In short, from the children and adolescents who wear courageous smiles as they leave their trials surrounded by soldiers, to the women of Damon prison who heroically stand up to their jailers, to the resistance of the prisoners who fight by putting their lives and health at risk while having a central role in the Resistance outside, it is the daily struggle of the prisoners’ movement that makes detention a place where resistance to the colonial regime is organised, continuing even inside detention.

As Charlotte Kates, Samidoun’s international coordinator, said:

“Despite the intention to use political imprisonment to suppress Palestinian resistance and derail the Palestinian liberation movement, Palestinian prisoners have remained political leaders and symbols of steadfastness for the struggle as a whole.”

In Kanaky, it was the announcement of the incarceration of CCAT activists on June 23 that relaunched the movement, who became the driving forces behind this new round of mobilisation.

On May 13, while the population was setting up roadblocks on the main roads of Nouméa, a mutiny broke out in the Camp Est prison in reaction to the plan to unfreeze the electoral body.

The prison was therefore directly part of the mobilisation, and three guards were taken hostage on this first day of struggle. They were quickly released after the RAID (French national police tactical unit) intervened.

But during the night of May 14-15, another revolt took place in the prison, rendering no fewer than 80 cells unusable.

It is therefore in this context of uprising and intifada throughout Kanaky, both in prisons and outside, that the announcement of the deportation of the 7 Kanak leaders took place.

In addition to these highly publicised deportations, there were also dozens of similar cases of transfers from Camp Est.

Completely ignored by the government, these took place both before May 23 and during the month of July, including participants in the prison uprisings as well as long-term prisoners transferred to relieve congestion in the Kanak prison.

Silence which masks the scale of these colonial deportations only intends to make the task of the families and political supporters of the Kanaks even more difficult in their attempt to show solidarity with the prisoners.

Furthermore, upon their arrival in mainland France, the CCAT activists were separated into 7 different prisons, directly recalling the policy of dispersion already at work in Spain at the end of the 1980s against ETA prisoners, in reaction to the effectiveness of their prison organising.

Today as yesterday, the colonial power dispatches prisoners throughout the mainland to prevent a collective counter-offensive. The prisoners’ connections with one another, but also with the outside, are consequently largely hampered.

This isolation directly aims to break the movement by tearing off its “head” and preventing any form of common struggle against this confinement. We therefore know that the momentum of struggle outside seems to respond to a hardening of detention conditions inside prisons, as evidenced by the isolation in which the CCAT activists are kept.

Likewise in Palestine, where since last October 7, mass arrests have escalated to the development of military concentration camps characterised by inhumane conditions of incarceration where severe torture is a daily, routine occurrence.

Currently, both for the more than 9300 Palestinian prisoners detained in the 19 Zionist colonial prisons, and for the thousands of prisoners from Gaza arrested during the genocidal offensive of the occupying forces on the Strip incarcerated in military camps, the conditions of detention have deteriorated significantly.

If in the colonial prisons Palestinian prisoners suffer hunger, collective isolation, overcrowding, violence and physical and psychological torture, conditions which have led to the martyrdom of at least 18 prisoners since October 7, in the military detention camps the situation is even more extreme.

The thousands of prisoners from Gaza held there are handcuffed and blindfolded 24 hours a day, forced to kneel on the ground, motionless for most of the day, raped and sexually assaulted and tortured daily, which leaves the released prisoners with enormous trauma.

Sick prisoners are crammed in naked, equipped with diapers, on beds without mattresses or blankets, in military airplane hangars and warehouses and without any medical care.

In all cases, isolation reigns, in prisons as in military detention centers, and the Zionist regime aims to cut off the Palestinian prisoners — and their collective movement — from the outside world.

Stories of prison escapes
Beyond the heroic prison uprisings, many stories of escapes from colonial prisons also fuel resistance and demonstrate the resilience of prisoners.

In Palestine, to cite a recent example, we recall the “Freedom Tunnel” operation, where six Palestinian prisoners freed themselves from the Zionist-occupied Gilboa high-security prison by digging a tunnel using a spoon.

The six Palestinians — Mahmoud al-Ardah, Mohammed al-Ardah, Yaqoub Qadri, Ayham Kamamji, Munadil Nafa’at and Zakaria Zubaidi — became Palestinian, Arab and international symbols of Palestinian resistance and the will for freedom.

While they were all rearrested, their escape exposed the weaknesses under the colonial myth of “impenetrable Israeli security”, plunging the occupation’s prison system into an internal crisis.

In France, the CRAs (Administrative Detention Centres) represent an ultra-violent manifestation of racism and the management of exiles. People are locked up in terrible and therefore deadly conditions.

Thus, faced with colonial management of populations, particularly from former French colonies, resistance is being organised.

For example, on the night of Friday, June 21 to Saturday, June 22, 14 people held at the CRA in Vincennes managed to escape (only one person has been re-arrested since).

This follows the escape of 11 detainees in December from this same place of confinement. However, these detention centres are often recent and very well equipped.

From Palestine to the Hegaxone and the colonial prisons in Kanaky, the resistance fighters fight day by day within the prison system itself, and the escapes and uprisings in the prisons are events that weaken the colonial propaganda and its myth of invincibility and total superiority.

Resistance continues
Despite the tightening of detention conditions and the security arsenal that is deployed against liberation movements, it is clear that the resistance is not stopping and that, on the contrary, organizing is becoming even more vigorous.

In Kanaky, new blockades in solidarity with the prisoners have spread well beyond Nouméa since June 23, demanding their immediate release and repatriation to Kanaky, since “touching one of them is touching everyone”.

In mainland France, numerous gatherings have also taken place since Monday at the call of the MKF (Kanak Movement in France), and among others led by the Collectif Solidarité Kanaky in front of the Ministry of Justice in Paris, and also in front of the prisons where the activists are still incarcerated.

Their prison numbers have been made public so that it is possible to write to them and so that broad and massive support can be communicated to them in order to provide them with the strength necessary for this fight from metropolitan France.

From now on, tributes to the Kanak martyrs who fell under the bullets of the colonial militias and the French State are joined by banners for the freedom of the prisoners.

Marah Bakir, a representative of Palestinian women prisoners, arrested at the age of 15 by the colonial army and imprisoned for 8 years, made these comments during her first interview given upon her release on 24 November 2023:

“It is very difficult to feel freedom and to be liberated in exchange for the blood of the martyrs of Gaza and the great sacrifices of our people in the Gaza Strip.”  

The Kanaky ‘martyrs’:
Stéphanie Nassaie Doouka, 17, and Chrétien Neregote, 36, shot in the head on May 20 by a business manager.

Djibril Saïko Salo, 19, shot in the back on May 15 by loyalist settlers at a roadblock.

Dany Tidjite, 48, killed by an off-duty police officer who tried to impose a roadblock.

Joseph Poulawa, 34, killed on May 28 by two bullets in the chest and shoulder by the GIGN (the elite police tactical unit of the National Gendarmerie of France)

Lionel Païta, 26, killed on June 3 by a bullet to the head by a police officer at a roadblock.

Victorin Rock Wamytan, known as “Banane”, 38 years old, father of two children, killed on July 10 by a shot in the chest by the GIGN on customary lands

In Kanaky, the names of these martyrs, just like the 19 of the Ouvéa cave, will remain forever in the memory of the activists and people, and as one could read on another banner in Noumea: “The fight must not cease for lack of a leader or fighters, this direction remains forever. Kanaky”

This article, by Samidoun Paris Banlieue, was published first in French at: https://samidoun.net/fr/2024/07/la-question-carcerale-dans-la-colonisation-de-la-kanaky-a-la-palestine/. During the protests in Kanaky in May and ongoing, French military forces targeted demonstrators, imposed a countrywide ban on TikTok, and have seized multiple political prisoners from the Kanak independence movement. This article is republished from Samidoun.

By Pita Ligaiula in Tokyo

The Pacific Islands Forum hopes to send a high-level delegation to Kanaky New Caledonia to investigate the current political crisis in the French territory before the Pacific Islands Forum Leaders meeting in Tonga in August.

According to Pacnews, Forum Chair and Cook Islands Prime Minister Mark Brown confirmed this during an interview with journalists in Tokyo after the conclusion of the PALM10 meeting.

He said while it was a work in progress, there had been a request from the territorial government of New Caledonia for a high-level Pacific delegation.

• READ MORE: Other Kanaky New Caledonia reports

Brown said the next step was to write a letter which would then need support from France.

“We will now go through the process of how we will put this into practice. Of course, it will require the support of the Government of France for the mission to proceed,” Brown said.

The Melanesian Spearhead Group (MSG) has voiced strong objections to France’s handling of the political situation in Kanaky/New Caledonia.

Brown said the Forum shared similar concerns.

“We do have similar concerns. The third referendum was boycotted by the Kanak population because of the impacts of covid-19 and the respect for the mourning period. Therefore, the outcome of that referendum is not valuable,” he said.

The adviser to New Caledonia’s President Charles Wea, who is in Japan for talks on the sidelines of the PALM10 meeting, told RNZ Pacific the high level group would be made up of the leaders of Fiji, Cook Islands, Tonga and Solomon Islands.

Fiji’s Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Sitiveni Rabuka announced he would lead the Forum’s fact-finding mission in New Caledonia.

“I have also been asked by many Pacific leaders to lead a group to conduct a fact-finding mission in Nouméa to understand the problems they are facing,” he said during a talanoa session with the Fijian diaspora in Tokyo.

“Additionally, I will accompany Prime Minister James Marape to visit the President of Indonesia to discuss further actions regarding the people of West Papua.”

New Zealand’s Foreign Affairs Minister Winston said on Friday that the Pacific Islands Forum could serve as a “constructive force” to find a “path forward” in New Caledonia.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ, and Pacnews.

A Kanak political commentator in Aotearoa New Zealand says calls to separate New Caledonia into pro- and anti-independence provinces would worsen racial inequality in the Pacific territory.

Unrest continues in the capital Nouméa, with the nephew of New Caledonia Congress pro-independence president shot and killed at Saint Louis, and more armoured vehicles arriving from France.

The official death toll as a result of the unrest stands at 10, but there are reports that more people have died because emergency services could not reach them in time due to roadblocks.

• READ MORE: Other Kanaky New Caledonia crisis reports
• LISTEN TO RNZ PACIFIC WAVES: ‘New Caledonia’s economy has been very badly damaged by weeks of rioting and clashes’

Calls to divide the territory’s provinces are being pushed by loyalist and the French territory’s Southern Province President Sonia Backes.

Speaking at the weekend, Backes said the project of a New Caledonia institutionally united and based on living together with each other was “over”.

AFP news agency reported Backes had said that when two opposing forces were convinced they were legitimately defending their values, they were faced with a choice of fighting each other to the death or separating so they could live.

Political uncertainty in Paris is delaying the possibility of any kind of resolution in the troubled territory, which is also fraught with internal divisions among both the pro- and anti-independence camps.

Pockets of inequality
Auckland lawyer Joseph Xulue told RNZ Pacific “separatist ideology” would create pockets of inequality.

“The support in the region, particularly, support in respect of economic resources, administrative resources would almost certainly be pumped into the Southern Province if this were to eventuate because France would understand that those are the people who are loyal to them,” he said.

Xulue said Backes’ ideas went against the spirit of the Nouméa Accord.

“It was agreed to and formed on the basis that we would not have this kind of separatist ideology. It helps to assent the actual Accord’s document . . .  [there’s a] stipulation that this would not happen.

“If Kanaky New Caledonia is going to advance beyond the actual Accord’s process.”

He added that Backes’ ideas would only worsen racial inequality in the archipelago.

‘Political reverberations’
Islands Business correspondent Nic Maclellan, who has been covering the French territory for decades, told RNZ Pacific the area where the latest death had been recorded had a long colonial history.

Maclellan said that in 1878 there was a revolt in the north and centre of the country, then in the 19th century, as the French military moved in attacking villages, many people fled to the outskirts of the capital.

He said nowadays Saint Louis was one of the areas where survivors from past conflicts had fled too.

“It has always been a hotspot, there has always been a level of criminal activity around people of St Louis. It is a strong community, largely Kanak,” he said.

“Police reports which is still under investigations suggest that a group of Kanaks were firing at a police drone. There was a exchange of gunfire between the Kanak activist and the members of the GIGN paramilitary unit and in that case a GIGN police officer shot and killed Rock [Victorin] Wamytan.”

Maclellan said the name of the dead man was symbolic in New Caledonia.

“[He] is nephew of Rock Wamytan, the current President of the Congress of New Caledonia who is a high chief of Saint Louis. So, beyond the allegations of criminal activity by this, this group of activists, it has also got political reverberations.”

French snap elections unhelpful
He said the French snap elections results both in mainland France and New Caledonia would continue to reverberate in months to come.

While the polls were predicting that the extreme right led by Marine Le Pen would win the largest bloc, and possibly a majority in the government, those polls turned out to be wrong.

Instead, a left alliance, known as the New Popular Front — an alliance of parties including the Greens, the Socialists, the Communist Party, and a large group led by Jean-Luc Mélenchon, France Unbowed, (LFI), have got the largest bloc.

However, Maclellan said no one had the absolute majority required to have the ruling numbers in the 577-seat French legislature in Paris.

“All in all, it is very complex, a fast-moving situation in Paris. We will see what happens.

“But the real problem for the Pacific is this level of uncertainty creates ongoing political, cultural, economic chaos that cannot be helpful at a time when New Caledonia’s economy has been very badly damaged by weeks of rioting and clashes between police and protesters,” he added.

New Zealand’s Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters has said the Pacific as a whole should be concerned about ongoing unrest in New Caledonia.

The Pacific Islands Forum has been in direct contact with New Caledonia to discuss how to address this issue.

Peters said he hoped a plan was in place ahead of the Forum Leaders’ Meeting in Nuku’alofa next month.

“The long term Pacific future is all of our business. We have to hope that before we get to Tonga that there has been some sort of guideline of how we might go forward,” he said.

“Our view is that we have to ensure that there is a solution where we can help — help to rebuild if we can.”

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

More armoured vehicles and firetrucks have been delivered for Kanaky New Caledonia’s security forces, including police and firemen.

The France-freighted shipment consignment arrived aboard a cargo vessel, the Calao, the French High Commission announced on Thursday.

It contained 10 more armoured vehicles for the security forces, as well as 15 other vehicles said to benefit local firefighters.

• READ MORE:  A surprising litmus test for Kanaky New Caledonia’s independence parties
• Other Kanaky New Caledonia crisis reports

The fire-fighting trucks will be delivered to the local Civil Security department.

“This is to pursue efforts to secure [New Caledonia] . . . It will be used to renew or replace equipment that has been damaged, including trucks and armoured vehicles,” French High Commissioner in New Caledonia Louis Le Franc said during a media briefing.

The 10 new armoured vehicles, known as Centaur, will be added to six others that were already deployed in New Caledonia since last month.

On board the same vessel, another batch of light armoured vehicles, dedicated to “exploration”, are described as bearing “reinforced windows” to protect passengers against bullets.

While efforts are ongoing to remove the numerous roadblocks in Nouméa and its suburbs, in the Northern Province, three French gendarmes have been injured and sustained bone fractures after their car was targeted and hit by a vehicle used by rioters, the French High Commission said.

One of the gendarmes has since been medically evacuated.

The incident took place in Houaïlou, in the north of the main island of Grande Terre.

Earlier incidents, especially in urban areas, involved home-made Viet Minh-like traps such as manhole covers being removed and dissimulated under branches, while sharp iron rods had been sealed inside the hole.

Several gendarmes who were tricked and fell into the hidden hole suffered serious injuries to the legs.

In other instances, especially on the roadblocks where French security forces are still trying to clear traffic access, gas bottles have been converted into explosive devices after being fitted with homemade remote-controlled detonators.

Saint Louis church presbytery destroyed by fire
Over the past few days, another hot point has been the village of Saint Louis, in the township of Mont-Dore (near Nouméa), where one rioter was killed earlier this week after firing gunshots to the gendarmes, who later retorted.

The death toll from the unrest is now 10.

On Thursday night, Saint Louis’s Catholic Mission, which had been set up in 1860 by the Marists, was set on fire and the presbytery (which had been occupied by rioters for the past few days) has been completely destroyed.

The Marist Brothers and Sisters had earlier been evacuated by French security forces.

Violent unrest has been ongoing in New Caledonia since mid-May, when riots, looting, arson, broke out.

This was initially in protest against a French government project to amend the Constitution and modify the rules of eligibility for local elections, a change perceived by the pro-independence movement as a bid to dilute the political strength of indigenous Kanak voters.

The riots, the worst since a quasi civil war erupted during the second half of the 1980s, have since caused the deaths of eight civilians and two French gendarmes.

Several hundred businesses and private residences were also set on fire and destroyed, for a total cost of some 2.2 billion euros (NZ$3.9 billion), according to the latest estimates.

As a result, several thousand employees have lost their jobs.

Two indicted women released – in home detention

Last month, a group of pro-independence activists was indicted and flown to metropolitan France, where they are now serving pre-trial detention in several jails.

They are facing a range of charges, revolving around allegations of “organised crime”.

The arrests prompted a fresh upsurge in violence.

Last Wednesday, the only two women in the group, Frédérique Muliava (chief-of-staff of pro-independence figure and New Caledonia Congress President Roch Wamytan) and Brenda Wanabo (described as communications officer of the controversial pro-independence “CCAT” – field actions coordination cell) have been allowed to leave their jail, located respectively in Riom (near Clermont-Ferrand) and Dijon (eastern France).

Pending their trial before a French court, the two will however remain under home detention in the same cities and wearing electronic monitoring bracelets.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Here is the livestream of Dr David Robie’s keynote address “Frontline Media Faultlines: How Critical Journalism Can Survive Against the Odds” at the 2024 Pacific International Media Conference in Suva, Fiji, earlier this month.

The conference was hosted by the University of the South Pacific journalism programme in collaboration with the Pacific Islands News Association (PINA) and the Asia Pacific Media Network (APMN) on 4-6 July 2024.

Dr Robie, editor of Asia Pacific Report and deputy chair of the APMN, is introduced by Professor Cherian George of Hong Kong Baptist University.

• READ MORE: A report of the address is here
• Other Pacific Media Conference reports

Dr David Robie’s keynote address on July 4.  Livestream video: The Australia Today

Republished from The Australia Today’s YouTube channel and Café Pacific with permission.

The voters in the second round of France’s national elections last weekend staved off an expected shift to the far-right. But the result in the Pacific territory Kanaky New Caledonia was also in many ways historic.

Of the two assembly representatives decided, a position fell on either side of the deep polarisation evident in the territory — one for loyalists, one for supporters of independence. But it is the independence side that will take the most from the result.

Turnout in the vote was remarkable, not only because of the violence in New Caledonia over recent months, which has curbed movement and public transport across the territory, but also because national elections have been seen particularly by independence parties as less relevant locally.

Not this time.

• READ MORE: Other Kanaky New Caledonia crisis reports

The two rounds of the elections saw voters arrive in droves, with 60 percent and 71 percent turnout respectively, compared to typically low levels of 35-40 percent in New Caledonia. Images showed long queues with many young people.

Voting was generally peaceful, although a blockade prevented voting in one Kanak commune during the first round.

After winning the first round, a hardline loyalist and independence candidate faced off in each constituency. The second round therefore presented a binary choice, effectively becoming a barometer of views around independence.

Sobering results for loyalists
While clearly not a referendum, it was the first chance to measure sentiment in this manner since the boycotted referendum in 2021, which had followed two independence votes narrowly favouring staying with France.

The resulting impasse about the future of the territory had erupted into violent protests in May this year, when President Emmanuel Macron sought unilaterally to broaden voter eligibility to the detriment of indigenous representation. Only Macron then called snap national elections.

These are sobering results for loyalists.

So the contest, as it unfolded in New Caledonia, represented high stakes for both sides.

In the event, loyalist Nicolas Metzdorf won 52.4 percent in the first constituency (Noumea and islands) over the independence candidate’s 47.6 percent. Independence candidate Emmanuel Tjibaou won 57.4 percent to the loyalist’s 42.6 percent in the second (Northern Province and outer suburbs of Noumea).

The results, a surprise even to independence leaders, were significant.

It is notable that in these national elections, all citizens are eligible to vote. Only local assembly elections apply the controversial voter eligibility provisions which provoked the current violence, provisions that advantage longstanding residents and thus indigenous independence supporters.

Independence parties’ success
Yet without the benefit of this restriction, independence parties won, securing a majority 53 percent (83,123 votes) to the loyalists’ 47 percent (72,897) of valid votes cast across the territory. They had won 43 percent and 47 percent in the two non-boycotted referendums.

Even in the constituency won by the loyalist, the independence candidate Omayra Naisseline, daughter-in-law of early independence fighter Nidoïsh Naisseline, won 47 percent of the vote.

These are sobering results for loyalists.

Independence party candidate Emmanuel Tjibaou, 48, carried particular symbolism. The son of the assassinated founding father of the independence movement Jean-Marie Tjibaou, Emmanuel had eschewed politics to this point, instead taking on cultural roles including as head of the Kanak cultural development agency.

He is a galvanising figure for independence supporters.

Emmanuel Tjibaou is now the first independence assembly representative in 38 years. He won notwithstanding France redesigning the two constituencies in 1988 specifically to prevent an independence representative win by including part of mainly loyalist Noumea in each.

A loyalist stronghold has been broken.

Further strain on both sides
While both a loyalist and independence parliamentarian will now sit in Paris and represent their different perspectives, the result will further strain the two sides.

Pro-independence supporters will be energised by the strong performance and this will increase expectations, especially among the young. The responsibility on elders is heavy. Tjibaou described the vote as  “a call for help, a cry of hope”. He has urged a return to the path of dialogue.

At the same time, loyalists will be concerned by independence party success. Insecurity and fear, already sharpened by recent violence, may intensify. While he referred to the need for dialogue, Nicolas Metzdorf is known for his tough uncompromising line.

Paradoxically the ongoing violence means an increased reliance on France for the reconstruction that will be a vital underpinning for talks. Estimates for rebuilding have  exceeded 2 billion euros (NZ$3.6 billion), with more than 800 businesses, countless schools and houses attacked, many destroyed.

Yet France itself is reeling after the snap elections returned no clear winner. Three blocs are vying for power, and are divided within their own ranks over how government should be formed. While French presidents have had to “cohabit” with an assembly majority of the opposite persuasion three times before, never has a president faced no clear majority.

It will take time, perhaps months, for a workable solution to emerge, during which New Caledonia is hardly likely to take precedence.

As New Caledonia’s neighbours prepare to meet for the annual Pacific Islands Forum summit next month, all will be hoping that the main parties can soon overcome their deep differences and find a peaceful local way forward.

Denise Fisher is a visiting fellow at ANU’s Centre for European Studies. She was an Australian diplomat for 30 years, serving in Australian diplomatic missions as a political and economic policy analyst in many capitals. The Australian Consul-General in Noumea, New Caledonia (2001-2004), she is the author of France in the South Pacific: Power and Politics (2013).

The Fiji NGO Coalition on Human Rights and other protesters took to the streets of Fiji’s capital Suva yesterday in a rare demonstration demanding freedom, decolonisation and human rights in Kanaky New Caledonia and West Papua.

The peaceful “pre-Bastille Day” protest came after recent events in Kanaky New Caledonia led to 10 deaths and a heavy build-up of French police and paramilitary forces.

It also followed ongoing human rights abuses and violations by Indonesia in West Papua.

• READ MORE: Other Kanaky New Caledonia reports
• Fiji protesters out in numbers for peaceful Kanaky protest

“As France commemorates Bastille Day on July 14 and celebrates their own principles of ‘liberty, equality, and fraternity’, its own action in the Pacific contradicts the national day,” said West Papuan activist Rosa Moiwend of the Pacific Network on Globalisation.

“French colonisation of Pacific territories and its continued acts of suppression in Māohi Niu and Kanaky New Caledonia are quite the opposite of what the French revolution achieved.

“Today, they are symbolic of the Bastille and the monarchy oppressing and abusing the people and denying their right to self-determination in their own lands,” she said.

The May riots and unrest in Kanaky New Caledonia has led to 3500 security personnel being deployed from France.

“At best, this is based on the severely misguided notion that the challenges of the decolonisation process can be resolved by force,” Moiwend said.

France’s true objectives ‘disguised’
“However, it is becoming clearer that the restoration of order and peace is just a disguise for France’s true objectives — a deliberate retrenchment and extension of colonial control.”

Almost two months after the outbreak of violence, tensions remain high and there is serious concern about the continuing restrictions on Kanaks.

Widespread reports of atrocities and police brutality against Kanaky youth have angered protest groups across the Pacific.

French authorities have extradited seven indigenous Kanak activists to prisons in France while awaiting trial on “conspiracy” charges over the rioting.

“French President Emmanuel Macron must be responsible for the current state of Kanaky New Caledonia,” said PANG in a statement.

“Blaming Kanak leaders and having them arrested and detained in France is a coverup and tactic to assert power. We call on President Macron to release the Kanak leaders and allow them legal representation.”

Olivia Baro from the Pacific Conference of Churches added that the issue of West Papua and the ongoing human rights abuse must not be forgotten, and Indonesia must be held responsible.

West Papuan voices ‘silenced’
Indonesia’s ongoing influence on the Melanesian Spearhead Group (MSG) and the Pacific Islands Leaders Forum has continued to silence the voices of West Papuans.

As Pacific peoples, we will continue to stand in solidarity with West Papua and their right to self-determination.

“As we commemorate the Biak massacre this month and remember the many lives lost in West Papua, the continuous suppression of West Papua by Indonesia is a similar struggle to Kanaky New Caledonia, Palestine and many human rights struggles globally,” said Baro.

Despite restrictions set by authorities to prevent Palestine flags and banners at the march, the coalition stands in solidarity with our brothers, sisters and families in Palestine.

The Fiji NGO Coalition on Human Rights in Fiji and their allies have been hosting vigils at the Fiji Women’s Crisis Centre compound for Palestine, West Papua and Kanaky every Thursday over the last eight months.

The call on the Fiji government and Pacific leaders to support the ceasefire in Gaza, and protect the rights of Palestinians, West Papuans and Kanaks.

“The struggles of Palestinians are no different to West Papua, Kanaky New Caledonia,” FWCC Coordinator and NGOCHR Chair Shamima Ali.

“These are struggles of self-determination, and their human rights must be upheld.”

Riots in Kanaky New Caledonia claimed their 10th victim yesterday.

The death took place as a result of an exchange of fire between a group of rioters in the village of Saint Louis (near the capital Nouméa) and French gendarmes, local news media reported.

Nouméa Public Prosecutor Yves Dupas yesterday confirmed the incident and the fatality, saying the victim had opened fire on the French gendarmes, who then returned fire.

• READ MORE: Other Kanaky New Caledonia crisis reports

Gunfire exchanges had also been reported on the previous day, since French security forces had arrived on site.

A group of armed snipers were reported to have entered the Church of Saint Louis, including the victim who was reported to have opened fire, aiming at the gendarmes from that location.

The victim is described as the nephew of prominent pro-independence politician and local territorial Congress president Roch Wamytan.

Wamytan is also the Great Chief of Saint Louis and a prominent figure of the hard-line pro-independence party Union Calédonienne (UC).

On Sunday, during an election night live broadcast, he told public television NC la 1ère that “as the High Chief of Saint Louis and as President of the Congress, I find what is going on in Saint Louis really regrettable”.

“We will try to address the situation in the coming days,” he said.

On Sunday night, French gendarmes had to evacuate two resident religious sisters from the Saint Louis Marist Mission after armed rioters threatened them at gunpoint and ordered them to leave.

It is the 10th name on the official death toll since violent riots broke out in New Caledonia on May 13.

The toll includes two French gendarmes.

French security forces had launched an operation in Saint Louis on Tuesday in a bid to restore law and order and dismantle several roadblocks and barricades erected by rioters in this area, known to be a pro-independence stronghold.

Car jacking
Several other incidents of car jacking had also been reported near the Saint Louis mission over the past few days on this portion of the strategic road leading to the capital Nouméa.

The incidents have been described by victims as the stealing of vehicles, threats at gunpoint, humiliation of drivers and passengers, and — in some cases — burning the vehicles.

Some of the victims later declared they had been ordered to take off their clothes.

Nearby Mont-Dore Mayor Eddie Lecourieux strongly condemned the actions as “unspeakable” and “unjustifiable”.

On Tuesday evening, another incident involved the burning of one of the maritime ferries – used by many as an alternate means to reach Nouméa.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

French Pacific results for the first round of French national snap elections yesterday showed a firm radicalisation, especially in the case of New Caledonia.

In both of New Caledonia’s constituencies, the second round will look like a showdown between pro-independence and pro-France contestants.

The French Pacific entity has been gripped by ongoing riots, arson and destruction since mid-May 2024.

Local outcomes of the national polls have confirmed a block-to-block, confrontational logic, between the most radical components of the opposing camps, the pro-independence and the pro-France (loyalists).

Pro-France leader Nicolas Metzdorf, who is a staunch advocate of the still-unimplemented controversial constitutional reform that is perceived to marginalise indigenous Kanaks’ vote and therefore sparked the current unrest in the French Pacific territory, obtained 39.81 percent of the votes in New Caledonia’s 1st constituency.

In the capital Nouméa, which has been suffering massive damage from the riots, he even received the support of 53.64 percent of the voters.

Also vying for the seat in the French National Assembly, the other candidate qualifying for the second round of vote (on Sunday 7 July) is pro-independence Omayra Naisseline, who belongs to Union Calédonienne, perceived as a hard-line component of the pro-independence platform FLNKS.

She obtained 36.34 percent of the votes.

Outgoing MP Philippe Dunoyer, a moderate pro-France politician, is now out of the race after collecting only 10.33 percent of the votes.

For New Caledonia’s second constituency, pro-independence Emmanuel Tjibaou topped the poll with an impressive 44.06 percent of the votes.

Tjibaou is the son of emblematic Kanak pro-independence leader Jean-Marie Tjibaou, a dominant figure who signed the Matignon-Oudinot Accord in 1988 with pro-France leader Jacques Lafleur, ending half a decade of civil war over the Kanak pro-independence cause.

In 1989, Tjibaou was assassinated by a hard-line member of his own movement.

Second to Tjibaou is Alcide Ponga, also an indigenous Kanak who was recently elected president of the pro-France Rassemblement-Les républicains party (36.18 percent).

Another candidate from the Eveil Océanien (mostly supported by the Wallisian community in New Caledonia), Milakulo Tukumuli, came third with 11.92 percent but does not qualify to contest in the second round.

In New Caledonia, polling on Sunday took place under heavy security and at least one incident was reported in Houaïlou, where car wrecks were placed in front of the polling stations, barring access to voters.

However, participation was very high on Sunday: 60.02 percent of the registered voters turned out, which is almost twice as much as the recorded rate at the previous general elections in 2022 (32.51 percent).

New Caledonia’s four remaining contestants for the run-off round of French snap elections next Sunday, July 7 are Nicolas Metzdorf (clockwise from top left), Emmanuel Tjibaou, Omayra Naisseline and Alcide Ponga. Image: NC la 1ère TV

French Polynesia
In French Polynesia (three constituencies), the stakes were quite different — all three sitting MPs were pro-independence after the previous French general elections in 2022.

Candidates for the ruling Tavini Huiraatira, for this first round of polls, managed to make it to the second round, like Steve Chailloux (second constituency, 41.61 percent) or Mereana Reid-Arbelot (third constituency, 42.71 percent) who will still have to fight in the second round to retain her seat in the French National Assembly against pro-autonomy Pascale Haiti (41.08 percent), who is the wife of long-time pro-France former president Gaston Flosse).

Chailloux, however, did not fare so well as his direct opponent, pro-autonomy platform and A Here ia Porinetia leader Nicole Sanquer, who collected 49.62 percent of the votes.

But those parties opposing independence, locally known as the “pro-autonomy”, had fielded their candidates under a common platform.

This is the case for Moerani Frébault, from the Marquesas Islands, who managed to secure 53.90 percent of the votes and is therefore declared winner without having to contest the second round.

His victory ejected the pro-independence outgoing MP Tematai Le Gayic (Tavini party, 1st constituency), even though he had collected 36.3 percent of the votes.

Wallis and Futuna
Incumbent MP Mikaele Seo (Renaissance, French President Macron’s party) breezes through against the other three contestants and obtained 61 percent of the votes and therefore is directly elected as a result of the first round for the seat at the Paris National Assembly.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Voters in New Caledonia will go to the polls this weekend under tight security, almost eight weeks after destructive and violent unrest broke out in the French Pacific archipelago.

They will vote for their two representatives in the 577-seat French National Assembly, which was dissolved by President Emmanuel Macron just before he — in a surprise move — called snap elections earlier this month.

The previous French general elections took place two years ago.

• READ MORE: Fresh violence flares up in New Caledonia – 35 arrested
• French National Assembly election: What’s at stake and what to expect?
• New Caledonia: France’s way or the Pacific way?
• Other New Caledonia crisis reports

The first round of voting takes place tomorrow and the second one next Sunday, July 7.

Since early May, the unrest has caused nine direct fatalities and the closure, looting and vandalism of several hundred companies and homes. More than 3500 security forces have been dispatched, with the damage now estimated at 1.5 billion euros (NZ$2.64 billion).

Earlier this month, 86.5 percent of New Caledonian voters abstained during the European Parliament elections.

It is anticipated that for these elections, the participation rate could be high.

Both incumbents are on the pro-France (loyalist) side.

On the pro-independence side, internal divisions have resulted in only the hard-line party (part of the FLNKS umbrella, which also includes other moderate parties) managing to field their candidates.

Public meetings and gatherings banned
French High Commissioner Louis Le Franc told media he did not want to take chances, even though no party or municipality had openly called for a boycott or any action hostile to the vote.

He said all public meetings would be banned, on top of a dusk-to-dawn curfew and a ban on the sale and transport of firearms, ammunition and alcohol.

“There are 222,900 registered voters for the legislative elections; the voting habits in New Caledonia are that it happens mostly in the morning. So, the peak hours are between 9 am and noon,” Le Franc said.

He said during those peak hours, queues could be expected outside the polling stations, especially in the Greater Nouméa area (including the neighbouring towns of Païta, Dumbéa and Mont-Dore).

“Provision has been made to ensure that voters who go there are not bothered by collective or individual elements who would like to disrupt the exercise of this democratic right.”

Lennon’s ‘Give Peace a Chance’ in class
This week, more public buildings, including schools and fire stations, have been burnt to the ground, and several schools have closed in the wake of the violence.

However, in Dumbéa, Apogoti High School and 13 other schools partly reopened on Friday, with teachers focusing on workshops.

“We met with all the teachers and we decided to mix several subjects,” music teacher Nicolas Le Yannou told public broadcaster NC la 1ère TV.

“We chose a song from John Lennon (‘Give Peace a Chance’) which calls for peace and then we translated the lyrics into Spanish, French and the local Drehu language.

“That allowed everyone to express themselves without having to brood over the difficult situation we have gone through. For us, music was our way to escape,” Le Yannou said.

Psychological assistance and counselling were also provided to students and teachers when required.

On Thursday, a new fire station under construction near Nouméa-La Tontouta Airport, which was scheduled to be opened later this year, was burnt down.

Pro-independence leader’s house destroyed
The home of one moderate pro-independence leader, Victor Tutugoro (president of the Union Progressiste en Mélanésie, PALIKA), was burnt down by rioters on Wednesday morning.

This prompted condemnation from Le France and New Caledonia’s local government, as well as from the president of New Caledonia’s Northern Province, Paul Néaoutyine.

Néaoutyine, who belongs to the Kanak Liberation Party, said several other politicians from the moderate fringe of FLNKS had also been targeted and threatened over the past few weeks.

PALIKA’s political bureau also condemned the attacks and destruction of Tutugoro’s residence.

PALIKA spokesman Charles Washetine called for calm and for all remaining roadblocks to be lifted.

“The right to vote is the fruit of a painful common history which commands us to fight for independence through the ballots and through the belief in intelligence which we have all inherited,” the party said.

The elections coincide with the 36th anniversary of the signing of the Matignon-Oudinot Accord between Jean-Marie Tjibaou and Jacques Lafleur, who were the leaders, respectively, of the pro-independence FLNKS and pro-France RPCR parties.

This year, there was no official commemoration ceremony.

After intense talks with then French Socialist Prime Minister Michel Rocard, they both shook hands on 26 June 1988 to mark the end of half a decade of quasi-civil war in New Caledonia.

One year later, Tjibaou and his deputy, Yéwéné Yéwéné, were gunned down by a member of the radical fringe of the pro-independence movement.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

French Ambassador Jean-Baptiste Jeangène Vilmer to Vanuatu has hit back at criticism about French policy over Kanaky New Caledonia with an op-ed article published in the Vanuatu Daily Post.

His article addresses key concerns regarding New Caledonia’s indigenous recognition, the decolonisation process, discrimination, military operations, and calls for independence in response to a protest petition delivered by the president of the Malvatumauri Council of Chiefs (MCC), Chief Paul Robert Ravun, earlier this month.

At least nine people, including two gendarmes, have died in the unrest and rioting that followed protests against French constitutional changes starting on May 13 that critics say will further marginalise the indigenous people of the territory.

• READ MORE: Fresh violence flares up in New Caledonia – 38 arrested
• Other reports on the Kanaky New Caledonia crisis

Damage from the rioting and arson is estimated to be 1 billion euros (about NZ$1.8 billion).

Eight arrested pro-independence leaders and charged over the riots were transferred to prisons in mainland France last weekend to await trial in a move heavily criticised across the Pacific.

Key points made by Ambassador Vilmer in his article in the Vanuatu Daily Post today were:

Recognition of indigenous people
Ambassador Vilmer reaffirmed France’s commitment to recognising the Kanak people as indigenous, emphasising their unique identity and cultural heritage, “the French government formally acknowledges the Kanaky people as indigenous, recognising their unique identity and cultural heritage”.

Highlighting the 1998 Nouméa Accord, Vilmer noted its acknowledgment of the dual legitimacy of both the Kanak people and other communities that have contributed to New Caledonia’s development, initiatives such as the inclusion of Kanak languages in the education system and the establishment of the Tjibaou Cultural Centre that underscores French support for promoting and defending Kanak culture.

Denouncing discrimination
Vilmer stressed France’s rejection of discrimination, saying “the French government denounces all forms of discrimination and is committed to promoting peace, justice, democracy, and respect for human rights”.

Measures aimed at improving access to employment, education, and public services for the Kanak population had been implemented, although Vilmer acknowledged that challenges remained and more work was needed to reduce inequalities and foster harmonious relations among all communities in New Caledonia.

Decolonisation of Kanaky
Regarding the decolonisation process, Vilmer highlighted France’s support for New Caledonia’s path towards self-determination, which began in 1988, “the process of decolonisation in New Caledonia has been ongoing since 1988, with the French government supporting a path towards self-determination”.

The Nouméa Accord of 1998, providing for substantial autonomy and the gradual transfer of powers to local authorities, had been praised by the United Nations Decolonisation Committee, despite three referendums in which a majority chose to remain part of France.

Vilmer underscored France’s commitment to ongoing dialogue and cooperation with regional partners to build a shared future.

Immediate cessation of military operations
Vilmer addressed concerns about military operations, clarifying that none were currently underway in New Caledonia, “there are no military operations currently taking place in New Caledonia”.

Law enforcement activities were being conducted by police and the gendarmerie to maintain public order and protect residents and infrastructure, adhering to the principle of proportionate use of force. The French government remained committed to ensuring safety and security while addressing unrest through dialogue and peaceful means.

Independent international investigations
On the issue of independent international investigations, Vilmer said there was “no necessity” for such measures as law enforcement actions were being supervised by independent courts following due legal process, “there is no need for independent international investigations”.

Reinforcements deployed by the French state were deemed necessary to prevent further violence and socioeconomic damage. Vilmer emphasised the government’s “transparency and openness” to dialogue concerning law enforcement operations.

Support for Kanaky independence
In response to calls for Kanak independence, Vilmer highlighted France’s engagement with regional partners and the structured process of self-determination provided by the Nouméa Accord, “the French government continues to engage with regional partners to support dialogue and cooperation”.

The Accord had facilitated multiple opportunities for the Kanak people and all New Caledonians to express their will.

Ambassador Vilmer reiterated France’s dedication to advancing an “inclusive and peaceful future” for New Caledonia through continued dialogue and partnership with regional partners.

Nicholas Mwai is a Vanuatu Daily Post reporter. This article is republished with permission.

Fresh violence has erupted in several parts of New Caledonia over the past three days, with more burning and destruction and at least one death connected to unrest.

The renewed unrest comes after seven pro-independence figures from the CCAT (Field Action Coordination Cell, close to the hard-line fringe of the pro-independence platform FLNKS) were indicted on Saturday and transferred by a special plane to several jails in mainland France.

They are facing charges related to the organisation of the protests that led to grave civil unrest that broke out in the French Pacific territory since May 13 in protest against a French Constitutional amendment.

• READ MORE: Kanaky New Caledonia unrest: Shock over pro-independence leader charges, transfer to France
• Other New Caledonia crisis reports

The amendment, which is now suspended, purported to change voter eligibility in New Caledonia’s local elections by opening the vote to French citizens having resided there for an uninterrupted ten years.

The pro-independence movement strongly opposed this change, saying it would marginalise the indigenous Kanak vote.

Because of the dissolution of the French National Assembly (Lower House) in view of a snap general election (due to be held on June 30 and 7 July 7), the Constitutional Bill however did not conclude its legislative path due to the inability of the French Congress (a joint sitting of both Upper and Lower Houses) to convene for a final vote on the controversial text.

At the weekend, of the 11 CCAT officials who were heard by investigating judges after their arrest on June 19, seven — including CCAT leader Christian Téin– were indicted and later transferred to several prisons to serve their pre-trial period in mainland France.

Since then, roadblocks and clashes with security forces have regained intensity in the capital Nouméa and its surroundings, as well as New Caledonia’s outer islands of Îles des Pins, Lifou and Maré, forcing domestic flights to be severely disrupted.

In Maré, a group of rioters attempted to storm the building housing the local gendarmerie.

In Dumbéa, a small town north of Nouméa, the municipal police headquarters and a primary school were burnt down.

Other clashes between French security forces and pro-independence rioters took place in Bourail, on the west coast of the main island.

Several other fires have been extinguished by local firefighters, especially in the Nouméa neighbourhoods of Magenta and the industrial zone of Ducos, French High Commissioner Louis Le Franc told the media on Monday.

But on many occasions firefighters and their vehicles were targeted by rioters.

Many schools that were preparing to reopen on Monday after six weeks of unrest have also remained closed.

More roadblocks were erected by rioters on the main highway linking Nouméa to its international airport of La Tontouta, hampering international air traffic and forcing the reactivation of air transfers from domestic Nouméa-Magenta airport.

In the face of the upsurge in violence, a dusk-to-dawn curfew has been maintained and the possession, sale and transportation of firearms, ammunition and alcohol, remain banned until further notice.

The fresh unrest has also caused at least one death in the past two days: a 23-year-old man died of “respiratory distress” in Nouméa’s Kaméré neighbourhood because emergency services arrived too late, due to roadblocks.

Another fatality was reported on Monday in Dumbéa, where a motorist died after attempting to use the express road on the wrong side and hit an oncoming vehicle coming from the opposite direction.

Le Franc said just for yesterday, June 24, a total of 38 people had been arrested by police and gendarmes.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

A group of pro-independence leaders charged with allegedly organising protests that turned into violent unrest in New Caledonia last month have been indicted and transferred to mainland France where they will be held in custody pending trial.

Christian Téin and 10 others were arrested by French security forces during a dawn operation in Nouméa last Wednesday.

Since then, they have been held for a preliminary period not exceeding 96 hours.

• READ MORE:  New Caledonia independence activists sent to France for detention
• Stop the violence against Kanaks plea by Vanuatu MPs
• Other New Caledonia crisis reports

‘If this was about making new martyrs of the pro-independence cause, then there would not have been a better way to do it.’

— A defence lawyer

The indicted group members are suspected of “giving orders” within a “Field Action Coordinating Cell” (CCAT) that was set up last year by Union Calédonienne (UC), the largest and one of the more radical parties forming the pro-independence FLNKS (Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front) unbrella group.

On behalf of CCAT, Téin organised a series of marches and protests, mainly peaceful, in New Caledonia, to oppose plans by the French government to change eligibility rules for local elections, which the pro-independence movement said would further marginalise indigenous Kanak voters.

Late on Saturday, New Caledonia’s Public Prosecutor Yves Dupas told local media the indictment followed a decision made by one of the two “liberties and detention” judges dedicated to the case on the same day.

The judge had ruled that Christian Téin should be temporarily transferred to a jail in Mulhouse (northeastern France), Téin’s lawyer Pierre Ortet told media.

Téin was seen entering the investigating judge’s chambers on Saturday afternoon, local time, and leaving the office about half an hour later after he had been told of his indictment.

Other suspects include Brenda Wanabo-Ipeze, described as the CCAT’s communications officer, who is to be transferred to another French jail in Dijon (southeast France).

Frédérique Muliava, described as chief-of-staff of New Caledonia’s Congress President Roch Wamytan (also a major figure of the UC party), is to be sent to another jail in Riom (near Clermont-Ferrand, Central France).

The “presumed order-givers of the acts committed starting from 12 May 2024” are facing a long list of charges, including incitement, conspiracy, and complicity to instigate murders on officers entrusted with public authority.

The transfer was decided to “ensure investigations can continue in a serene way and away from any pressure”, Dupas said.

‘Shock’, ‘surprise’, ‘stupor’ reactions
Thomas Gruet, Wanabo-Ipeze’s lawyer, commented with shock about the judge’s decision: “My client would never have imagined ending up here. She is extremely shocked because, in her view, this is just about activism.”

He said his client had “spent the whole of her first night (of indictment) handcuffed”.

Gruet said he was “extremely shocked and astounded” by this decision.

“I believe all the mistakes regarding the management of this crisis have now been made by the judiciary, which has responded politically. My client is an activist who has never called for violence. This will be a long trial, but we will demonstrate that she has never committed the charges she faces.”

About midnight local time, Gruet was seen bringing his client a large pink suitcase containing a few personal effects which he had collected from her house.

The transferred suspects are believed to have boarded a special flight in the early hours of Sunday.

Téin’s lawyer, Pierre Ortet, said “we are surprised and in a stupor”.

“We have already appealed (the ruling). Mr Téin intends to defend himself against the charges. It will be a long and complicated case.”

Another defence lawyer, Stéphane Bonomo, commented: “If this was about making new martyrs of the pro-independence cause, then there would not have been a better way to do it.”

On the French national political level and in the context of electoral campaigning ahead of the snap general election, to be held on 30 June and 7 July, far-left leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon said the decision to transfer Téin was “an alienation of his rights and a gross and dramatic political mistake”.

Other indicted persons
Among other persons who were indicted at the weekend are Guillaume Vama and Joël Tjibaou, the son of charismatic pro-independence FLNKS leader Jean-Marie Tjibaou, who signed the Matignon Accord peace agreement in 1988 and was assassinated one year later by a hardline member of the pro-independence movement.

Tjibaou and several others have asked for a delay to prepare their defence and they will be heard tomorrow.

Pending that hearing, they will not be transferred to mainland France and will be kept in custody in Nouméa, Tjibaou’s lawyer Claire Ghiani said.

Why CCAT leaders are targeted
The indicted group members are suspected of giving the orders within the CCAT.

The constitutional amendment that would allow voters residing in New Caledonia for a minimum period of 10 years to take part in New Caledonia’s provincial elections, has been passed by both of France’s houses of Parliament (the Senate, on April 2 and the French National Assembly, on May 14).

But the text, which still requires a final vote from the French Congress (a joint sitting of both Houses), has now been “suspended” by President Macron, mainly due to his calling of the snap general election on June 30 and July 7.

Violent riots involving the burning, and looting of more than 600 businesses and 200 residential homes, erupted mainly in the capital Nouméa starting from May 13.

Nine people, including two French gendarmes, have died as a result of the violent clashes.

More than 7000 people are already believed to have lost their jobs for a total financial damage estimate now well over 1 billion euros (NZ$1.8 billion) as a result of the unrest.

CCAT has consistently denied responsibility for the grave ongoing and violent civil unrest and Téin was featured on public television “calling for calm”.

Fresh clashes in Nouméa and outer islands
Meanwhile, there has been a new upsurge of violence and clashes in Nouméa and its surroundings, including the townships of Dumbéa (where about 30 rioters attempted to attack the local police station) and the neighbourhoods of Vallée-du-Tir, Magenta and Tuband, reports NC la 1ère TV.

On the outer island of Lifou (Loyalty Islands group, northeast of the main island), the airstrip was damaged and as a result, all Air Calédonie flights were cancelled.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

All eight Members of Parliament from Vanuatu’s Tafea Province have made a bold and powerful call to French President Emmanuel Macron to “stop the violence and killing” being committed against the Kanak people of New Caledonia.

The MPs include Trade Minister Bob Loughman, a former prime minister; Internal Affairs Minister Johnny Koanapo; Youth and Sports Minister Tomker Netvunei; Agriculture Minister Nako Natuman; Jotham Napat; Andrew Napuat; Xavier Harry; and Simil Johnson.

“We, the MPs of Tafea Province, in this 13th Legislature of the Parliament of the Republic of Vanuatu, make the following statement based on the undeniable historical cultural links, which has existed from time immemorial between our people of Tafea and the Kanaky people of New Caledonia . . .,” their signed statement said.

• READ MORE: Kanaky New Caledonia unrest: Pro-independence militant leaders arrested
• Other New Caledonia unrest reports

Nine people have been killed during the unrest that began on May 13, five of them Kanaks and two were gendarmes.

“As Melanesians to call for greater solidarity and bring to the spotlight the despicable acts of France as a colonial power that still colonises the island nations and maritime boundaries of our nations,” the statement said.

“The recent events in New Caledonia is provoked by various ingredients which France has been cunningly cooking on their agenda over the years including the amendment of the electoral list which they understand very well that the Melanesians living in their own Kanaky mother land in New Caledonia are strongly opposed to it.

“Because they know that France is deliberately using ways to alienate their voices in their own motherland.”

‘Honour Nouméa Accord’ call to France
The MPs called on France to honour its commitment under the Nouméa Accord and engage in political dialogue, as was the custom in Melanesia and the Pacific.

The MPs said it was “unfair to the helpless people of New Caledonia to be confronted by a world military power such as France and shoot, imprison, and expose them to fear in such a manner that we have recently witnessed”.

They said France could not and must not act like this in the Pacific.

“France simply needs to dialogue with the Kanak leaders, listen and respect them as equals,” their statement said.

“The Kanaky [sic] are not their subjects of unequals. They are asking for their political autonomy. That’s all.

“Why is France still colonising countries when the world has gone past the colonisation decade? Why can’t they choose to colonise another country in Europe?

“France as an old democracy must end colonising people in this day and age. If the colonised people are yearning for freedom and they cannot fight with weapons to get their right to freedom, France must not act like a dictator to silence the dissenting voices who are yearning for freedom.

‘Listen . . . not silence them’
“We call on France to listen, learn [from] the voices of the people, and not silence them with the barrel of a gun and other military weapons.

“We want to see France as a civilised state to take responsibility and not shoot Melanesians from land and air as if they are in a war. Stop killing Melanesians.”

The leaders from TAFEA also call on Kanaky leaders, both Independentists and non-independentists, to come together and discuss a common solution.

“We see dialogue as a fundamental part of our Melanesian culture, and the state and all political parties must recognise the value of political dialogue,” they said.

“. . . [We] ask all the people of the Republic of Vanuatu, including the government, chiefs, and churches, to stand in solidarity with our Melanesian families in New Caledonia.

“We ask all praying Christians to pray for God’s intervention in the situation in New Caledonia, to restore peace, and to bring calm to the people of New Caledonia. God bless the people of New Caledonia.”

Republished from the Vanuatu Daily Post with permission.

As New Caledonia passes the one-month mark since violent and deadly clashes erupted on last month, there has been no clear path put forward by Paris as far as the Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front (FLNKS) is concerned.

Eight people — including the leader of the Field Action Coordinating Cell (CCAT) Christian Téin — were arrested yesterday by New Caledonia’s security forces over the unrest since May 13.

According to the Public Prosecutor’s office, they face several potential charges, including organised destruction of goods and property and incitement of crimes and murders or murder attempts on officers entrusted with public authority.

• LISTEN TO RNZ PACIFIC WAVES: Listen to the people that were harassed in their houses” – French Ambassador to the Pacific Véronique Roger-Lacan
• New Caledonia police arrest pro-independence leader among 11 people over deadly protests – Al Jazeera
• French police raid pro-independence Kanak party HQ, arrest eight in crackdown
• Nouméa’s Tontouta International Airport reopened after civil unrest
• Other New Caledonia unrest reports

“All the unrest, all the troubles, is the result of the ignorance of the French government,” said New Caledonia territorial government spokesperson Charles Wea.

“We cannot have peace without the independence of the country. New Caledonia will always get into trouble if the case of independence is not taken into consideration,” he said.

But speaking in an exclusive interview with RNZ Pacific, the French Ambassador to the Pacific, Véronique Roger-Lacan, said there were options to resolve the ongoing conflict — but the violence needed to stop first.

Roger-Lacan said there was a national process to address the independence issue — that was through the controversial constitutional changes which has sparked the unrest.

Paris is also engaged with the UN Committee on Decolonisation (C24) where options of self-determination through independence or free association with an independent state are being discussed.

On top of that, Paris has met with the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) heads, or troika, over the phone and said talks are underway to either organise a meeting with regional leaders soon, or at the PIF leaders meeting in Tonga in August.

Whatever the option, the FLNKS and the wider pro-independence movement want a robust process that leads to independence, said Wea.

Roger-Lacan said the forces were needed and she rejected claims that the territory was being “militarised”.

She stressed that the thousands of special forces deployed were “necessary” to contain the violence and restore law and order.

Territorial Route 1 has been blocked by barricades erected by the rioters, and Roger-Lacan posed the question: “How do you remove this type of barricade if you have no forces?”

They have called for the immediate withdrawal of the extra forces and a phasing down of security options.

Pacific Conference of Churches general secretary Reverend James Bhagwan told RNZ Pacific France’s heavy deployment of security forces looked like militarisation to him.

“We have seen far too much already these last few weeks to be fooled,” he said.

“We still have militias who are armed, we still have increasing numbers of security forces on the ground. That is militarisation whether it is formal or something that’s been organised in a different way.

“We are just calling it as we see it.

“We’ve also seen the way in which the French government treats that particular area, recognising that this is part of maintaining their colonies as part of the Indo-Pacific strategy, that there is a militarisation movement happening by the French in the Pacific.”

‘Get their facts right’
However, Ambassador Roger-Lacan vehemently disagrees with such claims, saying individuals such as Reverend Bhagwan need to “get their facts right”.

She said claims that the French state had militarised New Caledonia and the region, must be corrected because “it’s not true”.

“First of all, violence had to be stopped, and public order and law enforcement had to be resumed,” she said.

“I would like to suggest for those people [civil society] to watch the houses that were burnt, to listen to the people that were harassed in their houses, to listen to people who were scared of the violence.”

She said such comments were biased, doubling down that “reinforcement was needed”.

Intergenerational trauma
The French Ambassador to the Pacific said concerns that the death toll from the unrest was much higher than reported was also not true.

The death toll stands at eight, she said, adding that three state security officers and five civilians had died.

But some indigenous Kanaks have called for Paris to investigate the death toll, as they believe more young rioters were feared dead.

Roger-Lacan wants worried parents to know France had heard them and concerned parents could call the 24/7 hotline.

“With gendarmes in New Caledonia everywhere, they know all the families, they know all the tribes,” she said.

“It is not true that we don’t have the appropriate links with the whole population.”

Reverend Bhagwan believes it is naive to expect communities to simply trust France given the political history of the territory.

He said there was “intergenerational trauma” simmering under the surface, especially when Kanaks see French forces on their land.

“You can understand then why mothers are concerned about their children, and so to ignore that intergenerational trauma for people in Kanaky, is really a little bit of naivety on the French High Commissioner’s part,” Reverend Bhagwan said.

But one thing all parties agree on is that “force” is not the answer to solve the current crisis.

“Of course, force is not the answer,” Ambassador Roger-Lacan said, but added “force has to be used to bring back public order sometimes”.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

New Caledonia’s security forces have arrested eight people believed to be involved in the organisation of pro-independence-related riots that broke out in the French Pacific territory last month.

The eight include leaders of the so-called Field Action Coordinating Cell (CCAT), a group that was set up by the Union Calédonienne (UC), one of the more radical and largest party making up the FLNKS (Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front) platform.

The large-scale dawn operation yesterday, mainly conducted by gendarmes at CCAT’s headquarters in downtown Nouméa’s Magenta district, as well as suburban Mont-Dore, is said to be part of a judicial preliminary inquiry into the events of May 13 involving the French anti-terrorist division.

• READ MORE: New Caledonia police arrest pro-independence leader among 11 people over deadly protests – Al Jazeera
• French police raid pro-independence Kanak party HQ, arrest eight in crackdown
• Nouméa’s Tontouta International Airport reopened after civil unrest
• Other New Caledonia unrest reports

The whole area had been cordoned off for the duration of the operation.

Public Prosecutor Yves Dupas said in a media release this inquiry had been launched on May 17.

“It includes potential charges of conspiracy in order to prepare the commission of a crime; organised destruction of goods and property by arson; complicity by way of incitement of crimes and murders or murder attempts on officers entrusted with public authority; and participation in a grouping formed with the aim of preparing acts of violence on persons and property.”

Dupas said that because some of the charges included organised crime, the arrested individuals could be kept in custody for up to 96 hours.

Téin among 8 arrested
CCAT leader Christian Téin was one of the eight arrested leaders.

Dupas said the arrested men had been notified of their fundamental rights, including the right to be assisted by a lawyer, the right to undergo a medical examination, and the right to remain silent during subsequent interviews.

“Investigators and the public prosecution intend to conduct this phase of the inquiry with all the necessary objectivity and impartiality — with the essential objective being seeking truth,” Dupas said.

Dupas pointed out other similar operations were also carried out on Wednesday, including at the headquarters of USTKE union, one of the major components of CCAT.

The arrests come five weeks after pro-independence protests — against a proposed change to the rules of eligibility of voters at local elections — degenerated into violence, looting and arson.

Current estimates are that more than 600 businesses, and about 200 private residences were destroyed, causing more than 7000 employees to lose their jobs for a total cost of more than 1 billion euros (NZ$1.8 billion).

Nine people have been killed during the unrest, mostly Kanaks.

The unrest is believed to be the worst since a quasi civil war erupted in New Caledonia during the second half of the 1980s.

‘Stay calm’ call by the UC
Pro-independence party Union Calédonienne swiftly reacted to the arrests on Wednesday by calling on “all of CCAT’s relays and our young people to stay calm and not to respond to provocation, whether on the ground or on social networks”.

UC, in a media release, said it “denounces” the “abusive arrests” of the CCAT leaders.

“The French State is persisting in its intimidation manoeuvres. Those arrests were predictable,” UC said, and also demanded “immediate explanations”.

UC president Daniel Goa is also calling on the removal of the French representative in New Caledonia, High Commissioner Louis Le Franc.

The Pro-France Loyalistes party leader and New Caledonia’s Southern province President, Sonia Backès, also reacted, but praised the arrests, saying “about time” on social networks.

Another pro-France politician from the same party, Nicolas Metzdorf, recalled that those arrests were needed before “a resumption of talks regarding the future of New Caledonia”.

“But all is not settled; the restoration of law and order, even though it now seems feasible, must continue to intensify.”

At the weekend, a Congress of the FLNKS was postponed, due to persisting differences between the pro-independence umbrella’s components, and the fact that UC had brought several hundred CCAT members to the conference, which local organisers and moderate FLNKS parties perceived as a “security risk”.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

French police and gendarmes force were deployed around the political headquarters of the pro-independence Caledonian Union in Kanaky New Caledonia’s Nouméa suburb of Magenta in a crackdown today.

The public prosecutor confirmed that eight protesters had been arrested, including the leader of the CCAT action groups, Christian Téin, as suspects in a “criminal conspiracy” investigation, local media report.

Prosecutor Yves Dupas said that the Prosecutor’s Office “intends to conduct this phase of the investigation with all the necessary objectivity and impartiality”.

• READ MORE: Nouméa’s Tontouta International Airport reopened after civil unrest
• Other New Caledonia unrest reports

The arrests were made in Nouméa and in the nearby township of Mont-Dore.

This was part of the investigation opened by the prosecution on May 17 — for days after the rioting and start of unrest in New Caledonia.

The Caledonian Union (UC) is the largest partner in the pro-independence umbrella group FLNKS (Kanak and Social National Liberation Front).

Presidential letter
Meanwhile, RNZ Pacific reports that French President Emmanuel Macron had written to the people of New Caledonia, confirming that he would not convene the Congress (both houses of Parliament) meeting needed to ratify the controversial constitutional electoral amendments.

Local media reports said Macron was also waiting for the “firm and definitive lifting” of all the roadblocks and unreserved condemnation of the violence — and that those who had encouraged unrest would have to answer for their action.

Macron had previously confirmed he had suspended but not withdrawn New Caledonia’s controversial constitutional amendment.

The changes would allow more people to vote with critics fearing it would weaken the indigenous Kanak voice.

In this letter, the President said France remained committed to the reconstruction of the Pacific territory, and called on New Caledonians “not to give in to pressure and disarray but to stand up to rebuild”.

The need for a return to dialogue was mentioned several times.

He wrote that this dialogue should make it possible to define a common “project of society for all New Caledonian citizens”, while respecting their history, their own identity and their aspirations.

This project, based on trust, would recognise the dignity of each person, justice and equality, and would need to provide a future for New Caledonia’s younger generations.

Macron’s letter ended with a handwritten paragraph which read: “I am confident in our ability to find together the path of respect, of shared ambition, of the future.”

‘Financial troubles’
Nicolas Metzdorf, a rightwing candidate for the 2024 snap general election, said he had contacted the President following this letter to tell him that it was “unsuitable given the situation in New Caledonia”.

New Caledonia’s local government Finance Minister Christopher Gygès said the territory was trying to get emergency money from France due to financial troubles.

One of the factors is believed to be the ongoing civil unrest that broke out on May 13, which prevented most of the public sector employees from being able to pay their social contributions.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

The national congress of New Caledonia’s pro-independence platform, the FLNKS, was postponed at the weekend due to major differences between its hard-line component and its more moderate parties.

The FLNKS is the Kanak Socialist National Liberation Front.

It consists of several pro-independence parties, including the Kanak Liberation Party (PALIKA), the Progressist Union in Melanesia (UPM) and the more radical and largest Union Calédonienne (UC).

• READ MORE: Other New Caledonia crisis reports

In recent months, following a perceived widening rift between the moderate and hard-line components of the pro-independence umbrella, UC has revived a so-called “Field Action Coordination Cell” (CCAT).

This has been increasingly active from October 2023 and more recently during the series of actions that erupted into roadblocks, riots, looting and arson.

CCAT mainly consists of radical political parties, trade unions within the pro-independence movement.

The 43rd FLNKS congress, in that context, was regarded as “crucial” over several key points.

Stance over unrest
These include the platform’s stance on the ongoing unrest and which action to take next and a response to a call to lift all remaining roadblocks — but also the pro-independence movement’s fielding of candidates to contest the French snap general election to be held on June 30 and July 7.

There are two seats and constituencies for New Caledonia in the French National Assembly.

Organising the 43rd FLNKS Congress, convened in the small village of Netchaot — near the town of Koné north of the main island — was this year the responsibility of moderate PALIKA.

It started to take place on Saturday, June 15, under heavy security from the organisers, who followed a policy of systematic searches of all participants, including party leaders, local media reported.

However, the UC delegation arrived three hours late, around midday.

A meeting of all component party leaders was held for about one hour, behind closed doors, public broadcaster NC la 1ère reported yesterday.

It was later announced that the congress, including a much-awaited debate on sensitive points, would not go on and had been “postponed”.

CCAT militants waiting
The main bone of contention was the fact that a large group of CCAT militants were being kept waiting in their vehicles on the road to the small village, with the hope of being allowed to take part in the FLNKS congress, with the support of UC.

But hosts and organisers made it clear that this was not acceptable and could be seen as an attempt from the radical movement to take over the whole of FLNKS.

They said they had concerns about the security of the whole event if the CCAT’s numerous militants were allowed in.

On Thursday and Friday last week, ahead of the FLNKS gathering, CCAT had organised its own general assembly in the town of Bourail — on the west coast of the main island — with an estimated 300-plus militants in attendance.

Moderate components of the FLNKS and organisers also made clear on Saturday that if and when the postponed congress resumed at another date, all roadblocks still in place throughout New Caledonia should be lifted.

In a separate media release last week, PALIKA had already called on all blockades in New Caledonia to be removed so that freedom of movement could be restored, especially at a time when voters were being called to the polls later this month as part of the French snap general election.

Candidates deadline
As the deadline for lodging candidates expired on Sunday, it was announced that the FLNKS, as an umbrella group, did not field any.

On its part, UC had separately fielded two candidates, Omaira Naisseline and Emmanuel Tjibaou, one for each of the two constituencies.

Earlier this month, UC president Daniel Goa said he was now aimed at proclaiming New Caledonia’s independence on 24 September 2025.

The date coincides with the anniversary of France’s colonisation of New Caledonia on 24 September 1853.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Fiji and Papua New Guinea have urged the UN’s Decolonisation Committee to expedite a visit to the French-controlled Pacific territory of Kanaky New Caledonia following its pro-independence riots last month.

Nine people have died, dozens were injured and businesses were torched during unrest in the capital Noumea triggered by the French government’s move to dilute the voting power of New Caledonia’s indigenous Kanak people.

Fiji’s permanent representative to the UN, Filipo Tarakinikini, whose statement was also on behalf of Papua New Guinea, spoke yesterday of the two countries’ “serious concern” at the disproportionate number of Kanaks who had lost their lives since the onset of the crisis.

• READ MORE: Pacific churches call at UN for France to drop ‘limbo law’ to restore peace in Kanaky
• Kanaky New Caledonia unrest: What happens to limbo law change with French snap election?
• History ‘replaying itself’ in Kanaky but Pacific solidarity growing, says Tau
• France’s snap election: what happened, why, and what’s next?
• Far right surges in EU vote, topping polls in Germany, France, Austria
• Other Kanaky New Caledonia reports

“We underscore that New Caledonia can best be described as a fork in the road situation,” Tarakinikini told the committee session at UN headquarters in New York.

“History is replete with good lessons,” he said, “to navigate such situations toward peaceful resolution. Today we have heard yet again loud and clear what colonisation does to a people.”

Tarakinikini said Fiji and Papua New Guinea want the UN’s Special Committee on Decolonisation to send a visiting mission to New Caledonia as soon as possible to get first-hand knowledge of the situation.

He also criticised militarisation of the island after France sent hundreds of police and troops with armoured personnel carriers to restore order. Unrest has continued despite the security reinforcements.

‘Taking up arms no solution’
“Taking up arms against each other is not the solution, nor is the militarisation and fortification by authorities in the territory the correct signal in our Blue Pacific continent,” Tarakinikini said.

New Caledonia’s international airport remains closed, preventing pro-independence President Louis Mapou and other representatives from traveling to the UN committee.

Rioting is estimated by the local chamber of commerce to have caused US$200 million in economic damage, with 7000 jobs lost.

The decolonisation committee was established by the UN General Assembly in 1961 to monitor implementation of the international commitment to granting independence to colonised peoples. Today, some 17 territories, home to 2 million people and mostly part of the former British empire, are under its purview.

Fiji and Papua New Guinea are both long-term committee members, which has listed New Caledonia as a UN non-self-governing territory under French administration since 1986.

In the Pacific, American Samoa, French Polynesia, Guam, Pitcairn and Tokelau also remain on the list.

Representatives of civil society organisations who spoke to the committee criticised France’s control of New Caledonia and blamed it for triggering the crisis.

Loyalists talk of ‘coup’
Loyalists who made submissions likened the riots to a coup and a deliberate sabotage of what they said was the previous consensus between Kanaks and French immigrants, “forcing those who do not adhere to the independence project to leave.”

France’s statement to the meeting appeared to blame outside forces for fomenting unrest.

“Certain external actors, far from the region, seek to fuel tensions through campaigns to manipulate information,” the country’s delegate said, adding the European country would “continue its cooperation with the UN, including during this key period.”

French National Assembly member from French Guiana Jean Victor Castor warned the country had entered a “new phase of colonial repression.”

Castor also called on the U.N. to send a mission to “encourage France to respect its commitments and pursue the path of concerted decolonisation, the only guarantee of a return to peace.”

French control of New Caledonia gives the European nation a significant security and diplomatic role in the Pacific at a time when the US, Australia and other Western countries are pushing back against China’s inroads in the region.

New Caledonia, home to about 270,000 people, also has valuable nickel deposits that are among the world’s largest.

Unrest worst since 1980s
The unrest was the worst political violence in the Pacific territory since the 1980s. The riots erupted on May 12 as the lower house of France’s National Assembly debated and subsequently approved a constitutional amendment to unfreeze New Caledonia’s electoral roll, which would give the vote to thousands of French immigrants.

Final approval of the amendment requires a joint sitting of France’s lower house and Senate.

On Wednesday, French President Emmanuel Macron said such efforts should be suspended following his call earlier this week for a snap general election in France, Agence France-Presse reports.

“I have decided to suspend it, because we can’t leave things ambiguous in this period,” Macron said, according to the international news service.

Referendums held in 2018 and 2020 under the UN-mandated decolonisation process produced modest majorities in favor of remaining part of France.

Less than half of New Caledonians voted in the third and final referendum in 2021 that overwhelmingly backed staying part of France.

The vote was boycotted by the Kanak independence movement after it was brought forward without consultation by the French government during a serious phase of the covid-19 pandemic, which restricted campaigning.

Mareva Lechat-Kitalong, Delegate for International, European and Pacific Affairs of French Polynesia, told the committee what happened with New Caledonia’s third referendum should “not happen again for a question so fundamental as independence or not.”

She also urged France to commit to a roadmap for French Polynesia that “fully supports a proper decolonisation process and self-determination process under the scrutiny of the United Nations.”

Copyright ©2015-2024, BenarNews. Republished with the permission of BenarNews.

The Pacific Conference of Churches (PCC) has called on France to drop the “limbo” proposed law on electoral changes in Kanaky New Caledonia opposed by the indigenous pro-independence movement and restore the path to peace and self-determination.

General secretary Reverend James Bhagwan made the call at the UN Committee of 24 meeting in New York as the future of the draft law, which has already been passed decisively by the Senate and National Assembly but not ratified by the combined legislative Council, looked doubtful as a result of French President Emmanuel Macron’s decision to call a snap election.

Incomplete legislation is reportedly deemed as suspended once a general election is called.

• READ MORE: Kanaky New Caledonia unrest: What happens to limbo law change with French snap election?
• History ‘replaying itself’ in Kanaky but Pacific solidarity growing, says Tau
• France’s snap election: what happened, why, and what’s next?
• Far right surges in EU vote, topping polls in Germany, France, Austria
• Other Kanaky New Caledonia reports

Reverend Bhagwan referred to his role as a petitioner at C24 in June 2022 when he spoke on behalf of Pacific faith and civil society organisations against the move by the French government to “fast track” legislative changes that would dilute the vote of the indigenous Kanaks, already a minority 41 percent of the 270,000 New Caledonian population.

Criticising France for having turned a “deaf ear” to the “untiring and peaceful calls of the indigenous people for a new political process following the 1998 Nouméa Accord, Reverend Bhagwan said Paris had not upheld “one of the most fundamental principles of the United Nations Charter — the fundamental right of all peoples to be free, free from colonial rule”.

in his group statement on the “Question of New Caledonia” to the “Special Committee on the Situation with regard to the implementation of the Declaration on the Granting of Independence of Colonial Countries and Peoples” at the UN, he said:

The chair, members of this august committee, petitioners and observers.

Greetings from the Pasifika Household of God. May the grace and peace of God be upon you all.

In June, 2022, I was here as a petitioner on behalf of faith and civil society organisations of our Pacific region, home to the French colonised territories of Kanaky New Caledonia and Mā’ohi Nui French Polynesia, to raise our concerns on the failure of the referendum process.

In Kanaky, under the Nouméa Accord, through the actions of the French government to fast track the third referendum, despite local, regional and global pleas.

In the two years since, France has taken further actions that contradict its responsibilities as an administrating power, to uphold one of the most fundamental principles of the United Nations Charter — the fundamental right of all peoples to be free, free from colonial rule.

France has turned a deaf ear to untiring and peaceful calls of the indigenous people of Kanaky-New Caledonia and other pro-independence supporters for a new political process, founded on justice, peaceful dialogue and consensus and has demonstrated a continued inability and unwillingness to remain a neutral and trustworthy party under the Nouméa Accord.

Today, on behalf of Pacific Churches and Civil Society we reiterate our collective concerns that we have made in a number of statements on the current situation in Kanaky.

Recalling these statements and on behalf of the Église Protestante de Kanaky Nouvelle-Calédonie, and the Pacific Regional Non-Governmental Organisation Alliance, the Pacific Conference of Churches calls:

1. For the immediate and unconditional withdrawal of the draft constitutional law seeking to unfreeze the local electorate roll. Noting that the Presidents of four other French overseas territories have called for the withdrawal of the voting changes;
2. On the French Government to reconsider, as an essential step to de-escalating tensions in the territory, any further deployment of armed forces to Kanaky;
3. On the French Presidency to cease any further attempts to enforce externally designed and controlled pathways to determine the political future of Kanaky, including a possible referendum in France to unfreeze the territory’s electorate roll;
4. On other parties to the Noumea Accord to heed the repeated and non-violent requests of the FLNKS and other pro-independence voices, over the last 2-3 years, to allow more conducive conditions for dialogue and negotiation for a better political agreement, and to give the process all the time necessary to do so;
5. For the Pacific Islands Forum to establish an Eminent Persons Group, comprising of French, Pacific Islands and international personalities, in collaboration with the C24, as a matter of urgency to mediate between the parties and ensure the best conditions to enable a just and peaceful dialogue process for the territory’s political future; and finally,
6. Beyond the political dialogue process, commitments to be made and kept for culturally appropriate community trauma healing for all communities in Kanaky and for community dialogue processes, particularly between Kanak and Caldoche for peacebuilding as well as nation building.

The very fact that Kanaky New Caledonia is an agenda item in this meeting and that of the 24th Committee is a reminder that their decolonisation is a matter of ‘WHEN’, not ‘if’ — and a ‘when’ that needs to be sooner rather than later.

May God’s blessings of justice, love and liberation be with all the people of Kanaky as they seek their own equality, liberty and fraternity.

Oleti Atrqatr (Thank you in the Kanak Drehu dialect).

Presented by
Reverend James Shri Bhagwan
General Secretary
Pacific Conference of Churches

French President Emmanuel Macron’s surprise dissolution of the National Assembly and call for snap general elections on June 30 and July 7 has implications for New Caledonia.

Grave civil unrest and rioting broke out on May 13 in reaction to a controversial constitutional amendment, directly affecting the voting system in local elections.

The National Assembly decisively voted for the change on May 14. A few weeks earlier, on April 2, the Senate (Upper House) had approved the same text.

• READ MORE: History ‘replaying itself’ in Kanaky but Pacific solidarity growing, says Tau
• France’s snap election: what happened, why, and what’s next?
• Far right surges in EU vote, topping polls in Germany, France, Austria
• Other Kanaky New Caledonia reports

However, the proposed constitutional change — which would open the list of eligible voters to an extra 25,000 citizens, mostly non-indigenous Kanaks — remains in limbo, as it needs to go through a final stage.

This final step is a vote in the French Congress, during a special sitting of both the Senate and National Assembly with a required 60 per cent majority.

Macron earlier indicated he would summon the Congress some time by the end of June.

During a quick visit to New Caledonia on May 23, he said he would agree to wait for some time to allow inclusive talks to take place between local leaders, concerning the long-term political future of New Caledonia — but the end of June deadline still remained.

There is also a technicality that would make the adopted text (still subject to the French Congress’s final approval) impossible to apply in its current form: with a now dissolved National Assembly and snap elections scheduled on June 30 (first round) and July 7 (second round), the French Congress (which includes the National Assembly) will definitely not be able to convene before mid-July.

Yet, the constitutional law, as endorsed in its present form by both Houses, is formulated in such a way that it “shall come into force on 1 July 2024” (article 2).

Since last month, there have been numerous calls from pro-independence and pro-France parties, as well as religious and civil society leaders, to scrap the text altogether, as a precondition to the return of some kind of civil peace and normalcy in the French Pacific archipelago.

Similar calls have been issued by former French prime ministers who had been directly in charge of New Caledonia’s affairs.

‘The end of life of this constitutional law’ – Mapou
New Caledonia’s President Louis Mapou, in a speech at the weekend, mentioned the controversial text before Macron’s dissolution announcement.

Mapou said the current unrest in New Caledonia, mostly by pro-independence parties, had de facto “signalled the end of life of this constitutional law”.

But he also called on Macron to clarify explicitly that he intended to withdraw the controversial text, perceived as the main cause for unrest in New Caledonia.

He said that the text, which he said had been “unilaterally decided” by France, had “reopened a wound that has taken so long to heal”.

The constitutional law, he said, was “against the current of New Caledonia’s recent history”, and was “useless because it has to be part of a global project”.

“In my humble opinion, this constitutional law, therefore, cannot continue to exist.

“By saying (last month in Nouméa) that it will not be forced through, the French President too, between the lines, has signified its death and its slow abandonment . . .

“It is difficult to imagine that the President would still want to table this constitutional bill (before the French Congress),” Mapou said.

Does the dissolution now mean the proposed voting system change is dead?
What the French Constitution says is that all pending bills left unvoted on by the Lower House are cancelled because the dissolution signifies the end of the legislature and therefore of the current ordinary session.

In the particular case of New Caledonia’s constitutional text, which has already been passed by both Houses, the general perception is that it would probably “die a beautiful death” after being given the dissolution final coup de grâce.

Obviously, now that the French National Assembly has been dissolved, the French Congress cannot sit.

“We’re now in caretaker mode and all outstanding bills are now cancelled,” outgoing National Assembly President Yaël Braun-Pivet said on French public television France 2 on Monday.

Local political reactions
On the local political scene, a few parties have been swift to react, with the pro-independence platform FLNKS (an umbrella group of pro-independence parties) saying it was now preparing to run for New Caledonia’s two constituencies in the French National Assembly.

FLNKS is holding its national congress next weekend 15 June 15.

New Caledonia’s two seats are held by two pro-France (loyalist) leaders, Nicolas Metzdorf and Philippe Dunoyer.

Daniel Goa, president of the Union Calédonienne (UC, the largest and one of the more radical components of the FLNKS), said the “mobilisation” at the heart of the current civil unrest would not stop.

But in order to allow movement during the snap general election campaign which is due to start shortly, he said there could be more flexibility in the roadblocks.

The barricades still remain in many parts of New Caledonia, and especially the capital Nouméa and its suburbs.

“We will reinforce our representation at (French) national level,” Goa said, anticipating the results of the forthcoming snap general election.

But there are also concerns regarding the way New Caledonia’s current crisis will be handled during the “caretaker” period, and who will be in charge of the sensitive issue in the next French government.

A “dialogue mission” consisting of three high-level public servants stayed in New Caledonia from May 23 to last week.

It was tasked to restore some kind of talks with all local parties and economic, civil society stakeholders.

Last week, it returned to Paris to provide a report on the situation and the advancement of talks aimed at finding a consensus on New Caledonia’s political future.

When they left last week, they said they would return to New Caledonia.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

By Don Wiseman, RNZ Pacific senior journalist

A group of 32 civil society organisations is writing to the French President Emmanuel Macron calling on him to change his stance toward the indigenous people of New Caledonia.

The group said it strongly supported the call by the FLNKS (Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front) and other pro-independence groups that only a non-violent response to the crisis will lead to a viable solution.

And it said President Macron must heed the call for an Eminent Persons Group to ensure the current crisis is resolved peacefully and impartiality is restored to the decolonisation process.

• READ MORE:  France’s snap election: what happened, why, and what’s next?
• Far right surges in EU vote, topping polls in Germany, France, Austria
• Other Kanaky New Caledonia reports

Don Wiseman spoke with Joey Tau, of the Pacific Network on Globalisation (PANG), one of the civil society bodies involved.

Joey Tau: Don, I just want to thank you for this opportunity, but also it is to really highlight France’s and, in this case, the Macron administration’s inability of fulfilling the Nouméa Accord in our statements, in our numerous statements, and you would have seen statements from around the region — there have been numerous events or incidents that have led to where Kanaky New Caledonia is at in its present state, with the Kanaks themselves not happy with where they’re headed to, in terms of negotiating a pathway with Paris.

You understand the referendums — three votes went ahead, or rather, the third vote went ahead, during a time when the world was going through a global pandemic. And the Kanaks had clearly, prior to the third referendum, called on Paris to halt, but yet France went ahead and imposed a third referendum.

Thus, the Kanaks boycotted the third referendum. All of these have just led up to where the current tension is right now.

The recent electoral proposal by France is a slap for Kanaks, who have been negotiating, trying to find a path. So in general, the concern that Pacific regional NGOs and civil societies not only in the Pacific, but at the national level in the Pacific, are concerned about France’s ongoing attempt to administer Kanaky New Caledonia [and] its inability to fulfill the Nouméa Accord.

Don Wiseman: In terms of stopping the violence and opening the dialogue, the problem I suppose a lot of people in New Caledonia and the French government itself might argue is that Kanaks have been heavily involved in quite a lot of violence that’s gone down in the last few weeks. So how do you square that?

JT: It has been growing, it has been a growing tension, Don, that this is not to ignore the growing military presence and the security personnel build up. You had roughly about 3000 military personnel or security personnel deployed in Nouméa on in Kanaky within two weeks, I think . . .

DW: Yes, but businesses were being burned down, houses were being burned down.

JT: Well as regional civil societies we condemn all forms of violence, and thus we have been calling for peaceful means of restoring peace talks, but this is not to ignore the fact that there is a growing military buildup. The ongoing military buildup needs to be also carefully looked at as it continues to instigate tension on the ground, limiting people, limiting the indigenous peoples movements.

And it just brings you back to, you know, the similar riots that had [in the 1980s] before New Caledonia came to an accord, as per the Nouméa Accord. It’s history replaying itself. So like I said earlier on, it generally highlights France’s inability to hold peace talks for the pathway forward for Kanaky/New Caledonia.

In this PR statement we’ve been calling on that we need neutral parties — we need a high eminence group of neutral people to facilitate the peace talks between Kanaks and France.

DW: So this eminent persons to be drawn from who and where?

JT: Well the UNC 24 committee meets [this] week. We are calling on the UN to initiate a high eminence persons but this is to facilitate these together with the Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat. Have independent Pacific leaders intervene and facilitate peace talks between both the Kanak pro=independence leaders and of course Macron and his administration.

DW: So you will be looking for the Eminent Persons group perhaps to be centrally involved in drawing up a new accord to replace the Nouméa Accord?

JT: Well, I think as per the Nouméa Accord the Kanaks have been trying to negotiate the next phase, post the referendum. And I think this has sparked the current situation. So the civil societies’ call very much supports concerns on the ground who are willing, who are asking for experts or neutral persons from the region and internationally to intervene.

And this could help facilitate a path forward between both parties. Should it be an accord or should it be the next phase? But we also have to remember New Caledonia Kanaky is on the list of the Committee of 24 which is the UN committee that is listed for decolonisation.

So how do we progress a territory? I guess the question for France is how do they progress the territory that is listed to be decolonised, post these recent events, post the referendum and it has to be now.

DW: Joey, you are currently at the Pacific Arts Festival in Hawai’i. There’s a lot of the Pacific there. Have issues like New Caledonia come up?

JT: The opening ceremony, which launches [the] two-week long festival saw a different turn to it, where we had flags representing Kanaky New Caledonia, West Papua, flying so high at this opening ceremony. You had the delegation of Guam, who, in their grand entrance brought the Kanaky flag with them — a sense of solidarity.

And when Fiji took the podium, it acknowledged countries and Pacific peoples that are not there to celebrate, rightfully.

Fiji had acknowledged West Papua, New Caledonia, among others, and you can see a sense of regional solidarity and this growing consciousness as to the wider Pacific family when it comes to arts, culture and our way of being.

So yeah, the opening ceremony was interesting, but it will be interesting to see how the festival pans out and how issues of the territories that are still under colonial administration get featured or get acknowledged within the festival — be it fashion, arts, dance, music, it’s going to be a really interesting feeling.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

A “dialogue mission” set up by French President Emmanuel Macron when he visited New Caledonia last month has reportedly left the French Pacific territory.

The “mediation and work” mission consists of three high-level public servants — Eric Thiers, Frédéric Potier and Rémi Bastille — who have all been previously working on New Caledonian affairs.

Local media reported the trio had left New Caledonia mid-week to “report to Paris” on the progress of their mission. They said they were planning to return to New Caledonia shortly.

• READ MORE:  Kanaky New Caledonia unrest: ‘People of Palestine and Kanaks are in the frontline’
• Kanaky New Caledonia unrest: ‘Nobody talks about what’s happening here anymore’
• Force not the answer in Kanaky New Caledonia, says PANG
• Other New Caledonia crisis reports

During the first two weeks of their stay, they are reported to have held meetings behind closed doors with about 100 political, economic and civil society leaders.

The pause in their work is believed to be in accordance with an announcement from pro-independence umbrella group FLNKS (Kanak Socialist National Liberation Front), which consists of several pro-independence parties, that it would hold its national Congress next Saturday.

The main item on the group’s agenda would be to announce a common stance on New Caledonia’s grave civil unrest, which started on May 13 in protest against a scheduled amendment to the French Constitution.

Eight people have died in the unrest, including two French police officers.

The amendment aims at “unfreezing” New Caledonia’s electoral roll for local elections to allow any citizen having resided there for at least 10 years to cast their vote at provincial and Congress (Parliament) elections.

This was perceived by the pro-independence movement as likely to dilute indigenous votes and therefore weaken their political representation.

A state of emergency was lifted in the territory in late May but a security force of more than 3000 could remain until after the Paris Olympics.

Union Calédonienne refuses to meet dialogue mission
In the face of an ever-widening rift within the FLNKS, one of its main components, the Union Calédonienne (UC), issued a release last Wednesday, saying it “did not wish to meet the dialogue mission . . .  under the current circumstances”.

It said talks with the French dialogue mission may take place, but only after the FLNKS held its Congress and only if the final endorsement process for the constitutional amendment was dropped.

“Such an announcement, in our view, would be the only trigger that would allow to sustainably appease New Caledonia’s situation,” the group said.

The UC also called for the “unification” of the pro-independence movement.

FLNKS, in a more moderate stance, earlier sent a letter to the three French dialogue mission members saying that Macron should “clarify” his stance on the proposed constitutional amendment.

He earlier said it could be submitted to the French people by way of a referendum, which caused an uproar in New Caledonia.

Macron later said he was “only mentioning the options available under the French Constitution” and it was “merely a a reading of the law, not an intention”.

The FLNKS said Macron’s intentions were not clear enough and his statements were no guarantee that the reform would be dropped.

That confusion “prevents our militants being receptive to the appeal for calm and appeasement”, the group said.

Moderate Calédonie Ensemble leader Philippe Gomès has also called for an end to the legislative process in order for law and order to be restored.

The unrest had left the economy in “tatters”, he told local media.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Kanak people in Aotearoa New Zealand are lamenting the loss of family and friends in Kanaky New Caledonia, following mass rioting and civil unrest since mid-May prompted by an electoral reform believed to threaten dilution of the indigenous voice.

A fono (meeting) at Māngere East Community Centre welcomed Kanak people who have been staying in Aotearoa since November last year and were here when the independence protests-turned-riots broke out on May 13.

The fono on the King’s Birthday holiday was in solidarity with the Kanak struggle for independence from France and drew connections between Kanaky, Aotearoa and Palestine.

• READ MORE:  Kanaky New Caledonia unrest: ‘Nobody talks about what’s happening here anymore’
• Force not the answer in Kanaky New Caledonia, says PANG
• Emmanuel Macron’s gamble on New Caledonia’s crisis
• Open letter to President Macron: End Kanak vote ‘unfreezing’ and complete decolonisation
• Other New Caledonia crisis reports

A young Kanak spoke at the fono in French which was translated by a French speaker on the night.

Te Ao Māori News has chosen not to reveal the identity of these Kanaks.

“We’re here but we’re not really here because most of us are hurt,” a young Kanak man said.

“Young brothers and sisters are being killed but we know that our brothers and sisters don’t have weapons.”

“Some of our families have been killed,” said another young Kanak man whose brother had died.

“It’s difficult for us ‘cos we’re far from our land, from our home.”

Officially, seven people had died during the unrest, four of them Kanak and two police officers (one by accident). However, there have been persistent rumours of other unconfirmed deaths.

Tāngata whenua on mana motuhake for all
Bianca Ranson (Ngāpuhi and Ngāti Kahu ki Whangaroa) was one of the speakers at the fono and spoke with Te Ao Māori News the following day.

Ranson is part of Matika mō Paretīnia, a solidarity group that organises in support of the Free Palestine Movement.

“One of the key messages that we were wanting to to get across or to be able to open up discussion around was settler colonialism . ..  whether that’s for us as tangata whenua here, with the current government, the attack that we’re seeing on our health, on education, whether it’s our treaty, the environment,” she said.

“But also you know when you really look at the tip of the spear, and of settler colonial violence that’s happening in other places around the world, the people of Palestine and the people of Kanaky are really on the frontline.”

Tina Ngata has also linked the struggles between Aotearoa and Kanaky and the shared visions of self-determination for Kanak and tino rangatiratanga for Māori, the French government derailing their decolonisation process and the “assimilation policies” that threaten Māori tino rangatiratanga and the right the self-determination.

Yasmine Serhan, a Palestinian raised in Aotearoa and speaker at the fono, said a highlight was Ranson inviting the Kanak community to her marae.

“I just thought that’s like the purest form of connection and solidarity to basically open your home up. Any activism that we do in Aotearoa is essentially the extension of the manaaki of tangata whenua,” she said.

“So seeing that in live action was really beautiful.”

The humanisation of resistance
Serhan also drew the connection between Kanaky, Aotearoa, and Palestine through the shared experience of settler colonialism and violent land dispossession.

“The space was set up to make it clear that our indigenous struggles aren’t in isolation and they’re not coincidental. They’re all interconnected and the liberation of one of us will lead to the liberation of all of us,” Serhan said.

“People who spoke from the Kanak community shared that they’re resisting with their bare hands. Basically, that is against an armed military force that’s been sent by France.

“It’s very similar to what’s happening in occupied Palestine, where they’re sending armed, Israeli occupational forces and people are resisting with their bare hands — basically, for their homes to be safe for their kids, for their schools, for their hospitals.”

Serhan emphasised the importance of fighting for the humanisation of resistance.

“The humanisation of our resistance happens when we share our stories, and when we continue to exist and be present in spaces.

“As a Palestinian person, my people have been resisting our erasure for 76 plus years, and for the Kanaks, it’s 150 years of living under French colonial rule.

“And we’re still here. We are the grandchildren, the mokopuna of ancestors that they’ve tried to erase and haven’t been successful in erasing.

“So our existence and presence here today is a very firm standing in our resistance.”

The barricades and unarmed Kanaks
One of the Kanaks who spoke at the fono said: “The French government has created organised militia. They have militias of local police to exterminate us.”

It was reported this week that France had deployed six more Centaures — armoured vehicles with tear gas and machine gun capabilities — to help police remove barricades.

However, a young Kanak at the fono said: “The barricades are built to protect the areas where people live. We got a video two days ago, 48 hours ago of the gendarmes, the French police, going into the suburbs where people live.

“They threw homemade gas bombs. People have found weapons from the militia, grenades, bombs and heavy artillery.”

Jessie Ounei, an Aotearoa-born Kanak woman told Te Ao Māori News there’s a lot of unchecked violence happening in Kanaky.

“It’s not being reported and the French forces are being left to their own devices.”

Ounei said there was a video released in the last few days of a young Kanak man who was going to the gas station and was shot in the face with a flash ball.

“There are right-wing civilians who see as a threat who want to . . .  I guess exterminate us is the nicest way to put that.

“I just want to say that they’re not being stopped and they’re not being addressed. That’s part of the reason why we have all these checkpoints and barricades, to keep our families safe.

“To keep our people safe. We have seen that it’s not the French forces that are going to keep us safe. We have to keep ourselves safe.”

Nuclearisation and militarisation of the Pacific
Ranson talked about imperialism regarding the extraction and exploitation of Kanaky resources that has directly benefitted the settlers and disregarded Kanak leadership or their care for the whenua.

Nickel mining in Kanaky started in 1864. Kanaks were excluded from the mining industry which has led to pollution, devastated forests, wetlands, waterways, and overall destruction of Kanaky’s biodiversity.

“There’s also the positioning of France in the wider Pacific,” Ranson said.

“We have to ask ourselves, why? Why is France in Kanaky? What does that serve in the overall agenda of the French colonial project.”

At the fono speakers made the connection between France and nuclearisation.

The French have undertaken nuclear tests in Fangataufa and Moruroa of French Polynesia which media had reported an estimated 110,000 people who had been affected by the radioactive fallout between the 1960s and 1990s.

In Aotearoa, Greenpeace was protesting the French nuclear tests in Moruroa with their protest fleet the flagship Rainbow Warrior was bombed by French spies in Opération Satanique which led to the death of Portuguese-Dutch photographer Fernando Pereira.

Ranson also mentioned the coalition government’s positioning of New Zealand.

“Whether it’s with AUKUS or strengthening our connections with US, there’s some serious, serious concerns that we as indigenous people have. The implications on tāngata moana throughout Te Moana Nui A Kiwa are immense if we are heading down the dangerous pathway of moving away from being a nuclear-free and independent Pacific.”

An article published by The Diplomat discussed New Zealand and France’s “shared vision for the Indo-Pacific”, which is the strategy launched by the Biden-Harris US administration in 2022 and has been more recently adopted by the French government.

The US has also conducted nuclear tests in the Pacific in the Bikini Atoll and the Marshall Islands, and is now part of the AUKUS security pact that will lead to nuclear proliferation in the Pacific and militarisation through advanced military technology sharing.

Opponents of AUKUS argue it compromises the Rarotongan treaty for a nuclear-free zone in the South Pacific.

Susanna Ounei, the late Kanak activist and mother of Jessie Ounei, has also made the connection between decolonisation and denuclearisation of the Pacific.

Susanna delivered a speech in Kenya 1985 as part of the United Nations Decade for women.

Ounei said the colonial government claimed there were 75,000 Kanaks when they arrived, but Kanaks said there were more than 200,000 and only 26,000 after French invaded. This indicated a mass genocide.

The future of Kanaky
When asked about her dreams for Kanaky, Jessie Ounei said she wanted an independent Kanaky.

“I want our people to choose and thrive. I want our people to have the resources to discover their gifts and share it with the world. I don’t want our people to make 90 percent of the incarceration rates or 70 percent of poverty rates.”

At the end of the night, one of the young Kanaks said: “We just want our freedom. Thank you very much for your support, we all have the same fight.

Said another Kanak youth: “We are so happy that you have a thought for the young Kanaks here. That you are with us. We’re not feeling that we’re left alone because you are behind us.”

Although much of what was discussed was heavy and saddening for those in the crowd, the night ended with the crowd dancing and cheering together in solidarity with each other’s struggles and the strength to keep resisting.

Te Aniwaniwa Paterson is a digital reporter with Te Ao Māori News.

People in Kanaky New Caledonia are disappointed that the riots last month are now being overshadowed by the Parliament elections and the Olympic Games.

New Caledonia High Commissioner Louis Le Franc said the European elections tomorrow will take place, despite some local municipalities indicating that they are experiencing difficulties.

He said additional security will be deployed for the elections, public broadcaster La Première TV reported.

• READ MORE:  Force not the answer in Kanaky New Caledonia, says PANG
• Emmanuel Macron’s gamble on New Caledonia’s crisis
• Open letter to President Macron: End Kanak vote ‘unfreezing’ and complete decolonisation
• Other New Caledonia crisis reports

Local journalist Coralie Cochin said French media had stopped reporting on the territory.

“They used to do it maybe three weeks ago, but now [people in New Caledonia] feel abandoned because nobody talks about what is happening here anymore,” Cochin said.

She said it was because of the upcoming EU elections and Paris Olympics, but also because “the French government tried to overshadow the subject”.

“They really want to show a very positive image of [Emmanuel Macron’s] action in New Caledonia.”

People feeling angry, discouraged
Cochin said people were feeling angry, discouraged and tired from the riots that broke out on May 13.

“They told us that they feel abandoned by the French government, okay Paris sent a lot of policemen on the ground, but those policemen didn’t manage to restore security outside after almost four weeks of riots.”

Cochin said from her count almost 10 houses were burned but more were damaged, while authorities did not have a figure.

She said the people who had homes destroyed or damaged moved in with friends and family.

They are blaming both the government and rioters for what happened, Cochin said.

“Some of them told me they were really disappointed by the authorities because they are supposed to help and make people feel secure but instead of that they had to flee their home and were not helped to find a new home.”

Cochin said people were concerned of losing their homes going forward but were most concerned of losing their job.

“I would say more than 6000 people lost their job already,” she said.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

A Pacific regional network has deplored what they call increasing brutality on Kanak youth in Kanaky New Caledonia and the deployment of thousands of troops.

New Caledonia has experienced a wave of violence with Nouméa the scene of riots, blockades, looting and deadly clashes since mid-May.

France has sent armoured vehicles with machine gun capability to New Caledonia to quell violence.

• READ MORE: Emmanuel Macron’s gamble on New Caledonia’s crisis
• Open letter to President Macron: End Kanak vote ‘unfreezing’ and complete decolonisation
• Other New Caledonia crisis reports

In a joint statement, endorsed by more than a dozen groups, including Pacific Elders’ Voice and Pacific Youth Council, the Pacific Network on Globalisation said “liberation” was the answer — not repression.

“The people of Kanaky New Caledonia have spoken, saying yet again, any and all attempts to determine the future relationship between France and the territory, by force, and without its people, will never be accepted,” the PANG statement said.

The group wants Paris to implement an impartial Eminent Persons Group (EPG) to resolve the crisis peacefully.

They also want Paris to withdraw the controversial electoral bill that prompted the violent turn of events in the territory.

‘Only pathway’
“The Pacific groups, and solidarity partners therefore strongly support the affirmation of the FLNKS and other pro-independence groups — that responding to the current crisis in a political and non-repressive, non-violent manner is the only pathway towards a viable solution,” PANG said in a statement.

A week after violence broke out in Kanaky New Caledonia on May 13, President Emmanuel Macron flew to the territory for a day to diffuse tensions.

He promised dialogue would continue, “in view of the current context, we give ourselves a few weeks so as to allow peace to return, dialogue to resume, in view of a comprehensive agreement”.

Following his departure, FLNKS representatives and other pro-independence voices were neither convinced of the effectiveness of his visit nor of the genuineness of his intentions, the PANG statement went on to say.

RNZ Pacific has contacted the French Ambassador for the Pacific, Véronique Roger-Lacan, for comment.

The news service has yet to receive a response.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

The president and board of the Protestant Church of Kanaky New Caledonia has appealed in an open letter to French President Emmanuel Macron to scrap the constitutional procedure to “unfreeze” the electorate, and to complete the “decolonisation project” initiated by the Nouméa Accords.

“If anyone can help us roll back the tombstone that is currently preventing any possible
resurrection, it is you, Mr President,” said the letter.

The church’s message said a “simple word” from the President would end the “fear, resistance and despair” that has gripped Kanaky New Caledonia since the protests against the French government’s proposed electoral law change on May 13 erupted into rioting and the erection of barricades.

• READ MORE: France sends armoured vehicles with machine gun capability to New Caledonia
• Other New Caledonia crisis reports

Opposition is mounting against the militarisation of the Pacific territory since the strife and the church wants to see the peaceful path over the past three decades resume towards “Caledonian citizenship”.

The letter said:

Open letter to Mr Emmanuel Macron
President of the French Republic

The President and the Board of the Protestant Church of Kanaky-New Caledonia decided, this Wednesday 05/06/2024, to transmit to you the following Declaration:

God accepts every human being as they are, without any merit on their part. His Spirit
manifests itself in us, teaching us to listen to each other. The Church owes respect to the
political and customary authorities, and vice versa.

In the current context, which is particularly explosive for our country, the Church’s expression of faith and its fidelity to the Gospel challenge it to bear witness to and proclaim Christian hope.

God created us as free human beings, inviting us to live in trust with him. We often betray this trust because we are often confronted with a world marked by evil and misfortune.

But a breach was opened with Jesus, recognised as the Christ announced by the prophets
God’s reign is already at work among us. We believe that in Jesus, the crucified and risen
Christ, God has taken upon himself evil, our sin.

Freed by his goodness and compassion, God dwells in our frailty and thus breaks the power of death. He makes all things new!

Through his Son Jesus, we all become his children. He constantly lifts us up: from fear to
confidence, from resignation to resistance, from despair to hope.

The Spirit of Pentecost encourages us to bear witness to God’s love in word and deed. He calls us, together with other artisans of justice and peace, whether political or traditional, to listen to the distress and to fight the scourges of all kinds: existential concerns, social breakdowns, hatred of others, discrimination, persecution, violence, refusal to accept any limits .. .  God himself is the source of new things and possible gifts.

We testify that the truth that the Church lives by always surpasses it.

It is therefore with respect and humility, Mr President, that we ask you:

• on the one hand, to officially record the end of the constitutional procedure for unfreezing the electorate and no longer to present it to the Versailles Congress; and
• secondly, to pursue the decolonisation project initiated by the Nouméa
  Accords, which would lead to Caledonian citizenship.

If anyone can help us roll back the tombstone that is currently preventing any possible
resurrection, it is you, Mr President of the Republic.

Don’t be afraid to revisit this legislative process that you have set in motion and that is placing the children of God of Kanaky New Caledonia in fear, resistance and despair.

With a simple word from you, these children of God in Kanaky New Caledonia can regain
their confidence and hope.

To him who is love beyond anything we can express or imagine, let us express our respect and gratitude.

The letter was signed by the Protestant Church president, Pastor Var Kaemo.

The unrest that has gripped Kanaky New Caledonia is the direct result of French President Emmanuel Macron’s partisan and stubborn political manoeuvring to derail the process towards self-determination in my homeland.

The deadly riots that erupted two weeks ago in the capital, Nouméa, were sparked by an electoral reform bill voted through in the French National Assembly, in Paris.

Almost 40 years ago, Kanaky New Caledonia made international headlines for similar reasons. The pro-independence and Kanak people have long been calling to settle the colonial situation in Kanaky New Caledonia, once and for all.

• READ MORE: France sends armoured vehicles with machine gun capability to New Caledonia
• Other Kanaky New Caledonia reports

Kanak people make up about 40 percent of the population in New Caledonia, which remains a French territory in the Pacific.

The Kanak independence movement, the Kanak National and Socialist Liberation Front (FLNKS), and its allies have been contesting the controversial electoral bill since it was introduced in the French Senate by the Macron government in April.

Relations between the French government and the FLNKS have been tense since Macron decided to push ahead with the third independence referendum in 2021. Despite the call by pro-independence groups and the Kanak people for it to be deferred due to the covid pandemic and its high death toll.

Ever since, the FLNKS and supporters have contested the political legitimacy of that referendum because the majority of the indigenous and colonised people of Kanaky New Caledonia did not take part in the vote.

Peaceful rallies
Since the electoral reform bill was introduced in the French Senate in April this year, peaceful rallies, demonstrations, marches and sit-ins gathering more than 10,000 people have been held in the city centre of Nouméa and around Kanaky New Caledonia.

But that did not stop the French government pushing ahead with the bill — despite clear signs that it would trigger unrest and violent reactions on the ground.

The tensions and loss of trust in the Macron government by pro-independence groups became more evident when Sonia Backés, an anti-independence leader and president of the Southern province, was appointed as State Secretary in charge of Citizenship in July 2022 and then Nicolas Metzdorf, another anti-independence representative as rapporteur on the proposed electoral reform bill.

Macron can deploy thousands of troops and military arsenals. France will never silence Kanaky aspirations for freedom https://t.co/GJcXFCDvLY

— Jimmy Naouna (@JNaouna) June 3, 2024

This clearly showed the French government was supporting loyalist parties in Kanaky New Caledonia — and that the French State had stepped out of its neutral position as a partner to the Nouméa Accord, and a party to negotiate toward a new political agreement.

Then last late last month, President Macron made the out-of-the blue decision to pay an 18 hour visit to Kanaky New Caledonia, to ease tensions and resume talks with local parties to build a new political agreement.

It was no more than a public relations exercise for his own political gain. Even within his own party, Macron has lost support to take the electoral reform bill through the Congrès de Versailles (a joint session of Parliament) and his handling of the situation in Kanaky New Caledonia is being contested at a national level by political groups, especially as campaigning for the upcoming European elections gathers pace.

Once back in Paris, Macron announced he may consider putting the electoral reform to a national referendum, as provided for under the French constitution; French citizens in France voted to endorse the Nouméa Accord in 1998.

“To me Kanak independence is inevitable” /
“I think France is prolonging the inevitable.” Sir Collin Tukuitonga
New Caledonia’s fires for freedom https://t.co/PB0edo9XWg

— Jimmy Naouna (@JNaouna) May 27, 2024

More pressure on talks
For the FLNKS, this option will only put more pressure on the talks for a new political agreement.

The average French citizen in Paris is not fully aware of the decolonisation process in Kanaky New Caledonia and why the electoral roll has been restricted to Kanaks and “citizens”, as per the Nouméa Accord. They may just vote “yes” on the basis of democratic principles: one man, one vote.

Yet others may vote “no” as to sanction against Macron’s policies and his handling of Kanaky New Caledonia.

Either way, the outcome of a national referendum on the proposed electoral reform bill — without a local consensus — would only trigger more protest and unrest in Kanaky New Caledonia.

After Macron’s visit, the FLNKS issued a statement reaffirming its call for the electoral reform process to be suspended or withdrawn.

It also called for a high-level independent mission to be sent into Kanaky New Caledonia to ease tensions and ensure a more conducive environment for talks to resume towards a new political agreement that sets a definite and clear pathway towards a new — and genuine — referendum on independence for Kanaky New Caledonia.

A peaceful future for all that hopefully will not fall on deaf ears again.

Jimmy Naouna is a member of Kanaky New Caledonia’s pro-independence FLNKS Political Bureau. This article was first published by The Guardian and is republished here with the permission of the author.

Police in New Caledonia have a new weapon in their arsenal — state of the art armoured vehicles with machine guns, flown in from France to take control of the law and order situation following the violent unrest.

The state of emergency was lifted in the territory last Tuesday but a security force of more than 3000 could remain until after the Paris Olympics.

Minister of the Interior and Overseas Territories Gérald Darmanin said via social media platform X that the vehicles, known as Centaur, can also fire tear gas.

• READ MORE: Other Kanaky New Caledonia protest reports

“These armoured vehicles will help the police put an end to all roadblocks and completely re-establish public order in the archipelago,” Darmanin said.

“In the event of more serious threats, such as a terrorist attack, which would involve the use of armed force, the Centaur may be equipped with a 7.62 remotely operated machine gun.”

He said the off-road vehicles can carry up to 10 people and fire tear gas from a turret to disperse violent individuals or keep them at bay.

A journalist on the ground, Coralie Cochin, told RNZ Pacific things are far from calm in the suburbs, despite official reports that law and order was being restored on the outskirts of Nouméa.

“The police fought with protesters who had just erected a roadblock and set fire to it in my street today,” Cochin said, who lives in the northern suburb of Dubea.

Macron can deploy thousands of troops and military arsenals. France will never silence Kanaky aspirations for freedom https://t.co/GJcXFCDvLY

— Jimmy Naouna (@JNaouna) June 3, 2024

“People fear for their houses. I have got friends who had to escape from their burning properties who have been left with nothing.”

She said people were divided over whether the Centaur will change anything.

“The Kanak people are afraid, they are wondering why the police have machine guns when all they have to fight with is stones,” Cochin said.

La seule solution qui nous sortira de l’ornière sera politique. On pourra envoyer tout le matériel dernier cri qu’on voudra, continuer de déployer l’armée sur le sol national comme s’il s’agissait d’une opération extérieure, le calme ne reviendra pas sans accord. #fatigue https://t.co/lLUXFAWqQK

— Charlotte Mannevy (@CMannevy) June 1, 2024

Others believe the Centaur is essential to crush roadblocks and protect property but attempts to eradicate them completely are so far proving futile.

“As soon as they are removed, pro-independence protesters put them back up again. It’s like a game of cat and mouse,” she said.

France has also decided to go ahead with the European elections in New Caledonia on Sunday, despite political tensions in the territory.

High Commissioner Louis Le France said in a statement that voting material had arrived and preparations were under way to transport it to polling stations.

Le France said a curfew would remain in place from 6pm to 6am until the day after the elections, as well as a ban on the sale of guns and alcohol.

He said Nouméa’s international airport would remain closed until further notice, while the situation was “normalised”.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

New Zealand Foreign Minister Winston Peters says “calm wise heads” are needed to sort out the crisis in New Caledonia.

A security force of more than 3000 personnel — more than half of them flown in from France — have returned to the capital Nouméa of the French territory to restore a sense of normalcy.

It comes after weeks of deadly unrest during which seven people were shot and killed, and others causing more than 200 million euros (NZ$353m) in damage.

• READ MORE: Three Nouméa police officers face prosecution after viral violent video
• Footage of French forces officer kicking Kanak man in head surfaces online
• Other Kanaky New Caledonia reports

But protests continue in the outskirts of Nouméa against the French government’s move to change New Caledonia’s electoral laws which pro-independent indigenous groups fear will dilute their political power.

Pacific Islands Forum chair Mark Brown wrote to the New Caledonia president to offer support, while Vanuatu’s climate minister Ralph Regenvanu blamed France for the crisis.

Speaking earlier this week as the final evacuation flight for New Zealand citizens and other nationals was about to depart from Nouméa, Peters would not be drawn on New Zealand’s position on Kanak aspirations for decolonisation.

“We think it’s wise for us to join with the Pacific Islands Forum, and have a statement we all agree to, rather than [New Zealand] … speaking out of turn,” Winston Peters said.

Long-term future
Peters said this was especially prudent given the views some members of the forum had been expressing in regard to New Caledonia’s long-term future.

“It’s not being reluctant to say something. But when you’re dealing with a major crisis of law and order and the destruction of property and businesses which will cost hundreds of millions of dollars to fix up, we need to keep our mind on that,” he said.

“And then, when we’ve got that under control, look at the long-term pathway forward to a peaceful solution. In the end, you would expect there to be agreed self-determination.”

From May 21-28, seven New Zealand flights helped to evacuate 225 New Zealanders and 145 foreign nationals from New Caledonia.

Peters paid tribute to the hardworking teams behind the joint NZ Defence Force and Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MFAT) operation which made the assistance possible.

Commercial flights into and out of New Caledonia remain closed until Sunday, June 2, and a nightly curfew is still in effect.

On Wednesday, New Caledonia’s public prosecutor confirmed three Nouméa municipal police officers were facing criminal charges after they were found to have engaged in acts of severe violence against a Kanak man they had just arrested.

The municipal police officers are not part or the French security forces that have been sent to restore law and order in New Caledonia, RNZ Pacific understands.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Cook Islands Prime Minister and Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) chair Mark Brown has written to the president of the government of New Caledonia to offer support in finding a way forward.

Brown said the political situation in the French territory — which is a full member of the PIF — remains deeply concerning to the Forum family.

He said there were a number of mechanisms and processes available to PIF members to help resolve “complex and historical issues” which remain “unsettled”.

• LISTEN TO RNZ PACIFIC WAVES: French Ambassador for the Pacific Véronique Roger-Lacan talks to Lydia Lewis
• Other Kanaky New Caledonia reports

He also stressed implementing an agreed way forward “must not be rushed”.

“Our Pacific region is home to independent experts and skilled personnel, that are familiar with this region, its history, its people, and importantly, its context, that can support all parties to move this process forward,” Brown said.

“Pacific Islands Forum [is ready to] to facilitate and provide a supported and neutral space for all parties to come together in the spirit of the Pacific Way, to find an agreed way forward that safeguards the interests of the people of New Caledonia.”

French President Emanuel Macron came and left Nouméa last week without announcing a return to a freeze or scrapping of the controversial constitutional amendment, which indigenous Kanaks and pro-independence groups have been calling for.

Dialogue promised
He promised dialogue would continue, “in view of the current context, we give ourselves a few weeks so as to allow peace to return, dialogue to resume, in view of a comprehensive agreement,” he said.

Indigenous Kanaks have also called for Macron to investigate the death toll, with more young rioters feared dead, and for the proposed constitutional amendments to be withdrawn.

Concerns have also been raised around the Kanak population facing a great deal of inequity and poor health, education and job outcomes.

Vanuatu Climate Minister Ralph Regenvanu told the media at the fourth UN Small Islands Developing States conference that “everyone could see this coming three years ago”.

“France has caused this crisis by its failure to recognise the Kanaks’ call for the third referendum to be deferred,” Regenvanu said.

Regenvanu said Macron’s visit made no difference “because France has to withdraw its legislative change to open the electoral rolls to allow for a resolution through dialogue”.

He said if that did not happen it will push the situation back to the cycle of violence that was prevalent in the 1980s.

“We are calling on France to withdraw the legislative proposals, and come back to the table and set up a new accord with the indépendantistes and the anti-independentists in the territory,” Regenvanu said.

“If France does not withdraw the legislative amendments, the violence will continue.”

‘France’s credibility challenged’
Massey University Defence and Security Studies associate professor Dr Powles said the PIF had produced a “fairly scathing” report on the third and final New Caledonia referendum.

But the French President’s stand on the issue of the third self-determination referendum (held in December 2021 and boycotted by the pro-independence camp) is: “I will not go back on this.”

Dr Powles said there were options for the Forum Secretariat, including using the existing regional crisis mechanism under the Biketawa Declaration.

The declaration has been used on a number of occasions in the Pacific, in Nauru, in Solomon Islands, as well as in several other cases, she said.

“France’s credibility was strongly challenged by virtue of the fact that it is a colonial power in the Pacific,” Dr Powles said.

“A resilient Pacific is a Pacific in which all Pacific peoples are free and independent. And that is really the best type of resilience which will keep the region safe.”

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Three Nouméa municipal policemen are now facing a prosecution after a disturbing video was posted in a Facebook neighbourhood watch group, allegedly implicating them in acts of severe violence against a Kanak man they had just arrested.

The municipal police officers are not part of the French security forces that have been sent to restore law and order, RNZ Pacific understands.

Initial investigations established that the violence took place on at 6th Kilometre, on the night of May 25-26, and that it “followed the arrest of several persons suspected of a theft attempt”, Nouméa Public Prosecutor Yves Dupas said in a statement yesterday.

• READ MORE: Footage of French forces officer kicking Kanak man in head surfaces online
• Other Kanaky New Caledonia reports

The incident was captured in a brief video, later posted on social networks, being shared hundreds of times and going viral.

“It is the management of municipal police themselves who have signalled this to us”, Dupas said.

The Public Prosecutor’s Office said it had verified the authenticity of the short footage which depicted a “representative of the security forces striking a violent foot kick to the head of a person sitting on the ground after he was arrested”.

On the same video, the other two officers, all equipped with riot gear, are seen to be standing by, surrounding the victim.

Dupas said a formal inquiry was now underway against the three municipal police officers who were now facing charges of “violence from a person entrusted with public authority and failure to assist a person in peril”.

“This case will be treated with every expected severity, being related to presumed facts of illegitimate violence on the part of officers entrusted with a mission of administrative and judicial police”, the statement said.

It added that “this is the first case being treated for this type of act since the beginning of civil unrest in New Caledonia” and further stressed that law enforcement agencies deployed on the ground have displayed “professionalism” in the “difficult management of the law enforcement operations carried out”.

“The victim remains to be approached by investigators in order to undergo medical examination and assess his current health condition.”

The announcement was made as part of the French High Commissioner Louis Le Franc during his daily update on the situation.

“As a follow-up to the end of the state of emergency since Tuesday, 28 May, 2024, the ban on the platform TikTok has been lifted,” a statement said.

The ban was announced on May 15 in what was then described as an attempt to block contacts between rioting groups in the French Pacific territory.

It had since then been widely contested as a breach of human rights.

Doubts had also been expressed on how effective the measure could have been, with other platforms (such as Facebook, WhatsApp or Viber) remaining accessible and the fact that the ban on Tiktok could be easily dodged with VPN tools.

World Cup 1998 winner Karembeu ‘in mourning’
Earlier this week, former footballer and 1998 World Cup champion Christian Karembeu made a surprise revelation saying two members of his family had been shot dead during the riots.

Speaking to French radio Europe 1 on Monday, Karembeu said: “I have lost members of my family, that’s why I remained silent (until now), because I am in mourning.”

“Two members of my family have been shot with a bullet in the head. These are snipers. The word is strong but they have been assassinated and we hope investigations will be made on these murders”, the Kanak footballer said, adding the victims were his nephew and his niece.

Karembeu’s career involves 53 tests for the French national football team, one world cup victory (1998), playing for prestigious European clubs such as Nantes, Sampdoria, and Real Madrid (where he won two Champions League titles), Olympiakos, Servette, and Bastia.

He is now a strategic advisor and ambassador for Greek club Olympiakos.

Reacting to Karembeu’s announcements, Chief Prosecutor Dupas told public broadcaster NC la Première on Tuesday he believed Karembeu was referring to the two Kanak people who were killed earlier this month in Nouméa’s industrial zone of Ducos.

“I do not know what his family kinship relation is with those two victims who were assassinated in Ducos,” he said.

“But concerning these facts, an investigation is underway, it has gotten pretty far already, one (European) company manager has been arrested and remains in custody. The Justice is processing all the facts, crimes, committed.”

“We have, among the civilian victims, four persons of the Kanak community and it is a possibility that some of those could be related to Christian Karembeu”, he said.

Asked on a possibly higher number of fatalities, he stressed the death toll so far remained at seven.

“We have not received any other complaint regarding people shooting civilians”, he maintained, while encouraging members of the public who would be aware of other fatal incidents to come forward and contact his office.

“We arrived in our car, I saw the roadblock, I barely had time to reverse and go back and they started to shoot. About 10 times,” the unidentified witness said, showing two bullet holes on his car.

“I have lodged a complaint for murder attempt and now the investigation is ongoing,” he said.

Two other Kanaks said the following day, on May 16, while in the streets of their neighbourhood, they were shot at by balaclava-clad passengers of two driving by pick-up trucks.

“We started to run and that’s when we heard the first gunshots. My little brother managed to take shelter at a neighbour’s home, and I went on running with the 4WD behind me. When I arrived at my family’s home, I jumped into the garden and that’s when I heard a second gunshot”, he told La Première.

“We never thought this would happen to us”.

Dupas said another, wider investigation, was underway since May 17 in order to identify “those who are pulling the ropes and who led the “planning and committing of attacks that have hit New Caledonia”.

“This means anyone, whatever his/her level of implication, whether order-givers or just actors”.

Latest update
The state of emergency was lifted on Tuesday in New Caledonia following an announcement from French President Emmanuel Macron, who was in New Caledonia on a 17-hour visit last Thursday.

The end of the state of emergency was described by Macron as being part of the “commitments” he made while meeting representatives of New Caledonia’s pro-independence movement last week and to allow leaders to spread the message to people to lift roadblocks and barricades and “loosen the grip”.

However, a dusk-to-dawn (6pm to 6am) curfew remains in place, including a ban on public meetings, the sale of alcohol and the possession and transportation of firearms and ammunition, French High Commissioner Louis Le France said yesterday.

An estimated 3500 security forces (police, gendarmes and special riot squads) remain on the ground.

Taxis have announced they were now resuming service, but bus services remain closed because “too many roads remain impracticable”.

High Commissioner Le Franc said that since the unrest began on May 13, a total of 535 people had been arrested, 136 security forces (police and gendarmes) had been injured and the death toll remained at seven (including two gendarmes, four indigenous Kanaks and one person of European ascent).

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

By Kelvin Anthony, RNZ Pacific digital lead, and Margot Staunton, RNZ journalist

Police brutality will further escalate tensions between pro-independence activists and French security forces in New Caledonia, a senior church leader in Nouméa says.

On Tuesday night, video footage which shows a French security officer, who appears to have apprehended a Kanaky activist, then pushed the handcuffed man to the ground, before kicking him in the head and knocking him out.

The clip — shared on a Nouméa neighbourhood watch Facebook group — is being widely circulated online and has been shared almost 400 times (as on Wednesday 3pm NZT).

• READ MORE:  ‘I can’t just stand back’: Kanak pro-independence activist follows mum’s footsteps
• Blood in the Pacific: 30 years on from the Ouvéa Island cave massacre
• Other Kanaky New Caledonia reports

According to sources, the incident occurred at the Six Kilometre district in Nouméa.

They are concerned it is due to actions like this that Paris has banned TikTok in New Caledonia so human rights abuses by the French security are not exposed.

RNZ Pacific has contacted the French High Commissioner’s office and the French Ambassador to the Pacific for comment, seeking their response to this footage.

Reverend Billy Wetewea from the Protestant Church of Kanaky New Caledonia told RNZ Pacific the police action was “not helping to bring calmness to the people on the ground”.

“Like this kind of action from the police is not helping in our people to not go into violence against [sic],” he said.

Reverend Watewea said the Kanak people on the ground had been advised to record all the movements of the security forces.

“Especially when police forces are starting to attack [indigenous pro-independence Kanaks].”

He said the footage that surfaced on Tuesday night was “not the first” such incident.

“Some other situations in videos has been recorded as well. The people in responsibility will take those issues to the court because that’s not acceptable coming from police to have this kind of behaviour.”

The death toll during two weeks of violent and destructive riots in New Caledonia has risen to seven.

In a statement, the French High Commission said 134 police officers had been injured and nearly 500 people had been arrested.

The state of emergency in the territory was lifted on Tuesday.

The statement said that while the state of emergency had been lifted, the ban on gatherings, the sale and transport of guns and alcohol, as well as the curfew, remained in place.

Resistance will continue
A Kanak pro-independence activist Jimmy Naouna predicts police brutality and riots will continue as long as New Caledonia is highly militarised.

A security force of 3000 remains in Nouméa with a further 484 on the way.

The economic cost as a result of the unrest is estimated to be almost 1 billion euros (US$1.8 billion).

Pro-independence alliance FLNKS member Naouna told RNZ Pacific the territory needed a political solution, not a military one.

“They keep sending in more troops but that won’t solve the issue,” he said.

“This is a political issue and it needs a political solution. The more you have the military and the police on the ground, the more violence there will be on both sides,” he said.

‘People want to be heard’
Wetewea told RNZ Pacific while the presence of the French army on the streets has eased tensions, the decisions made at the political level in Paris are not helping to calm the people on the ground.

He said the French President Emmanuel Macron is not listening to the indigenous people’s voices and the indigenous people have “had enough”.

“For the people on the ground, they have had enough,” he said.

“They want change. People want to be heard, people on the ground, people who are suffering in their houses. And we are facing now a situation that will be hard to recover from.”

Naouna said Macron’s visit to the territory was merely a “political manoeuvre”.

He said the pro-independence groups were expecting the French President to abate tensions by suspending and withdrawing the electoral reform bill.

“[Macron] is losing support in his own political groups. In France, coming up in June. He is losing support for the European elections.

“So, it is mainly for his own political gains that he has had to come to New Caledonia.”

Wetewea said there was a realisation in New Caledonia that the events were led by indigenous young people in the city who have been denied opportunities and discriminated against.

“That is the the part of the population that France was not taking care of for a long time, the part of the population that faced discrimination every day in schools, in seeking employment.

He said the young people expressed all of these frustration towards a system that did not acknowledge them.

“But looking more largely against the system that does not really incorporate or acknowledge our the Kanak people and their culture.”

‘Stifling free speech’
Asia Pacific Report editor and Asia Pacific Media Network (APMN) deputy chair Dr David Robie deplored what he called the “the French tactics of reverting back to the brutality of the crackdowns during the 1980s”.

“It’s no wonder the French authorities were quick to ban TikTok, trying unsuccessfully to stifle free debate and hide the brutality,” he said in response to the disturbing footage.

He said there was a need for dialogue and a genuine attempt to hear Kanak aspirations, and public goodwill, in a bid to reach a consensus for the future.

“If there had been more listening than talking by Paris and its ministers over the past three years, this crisis could have been avoided. But repression now will only backfire.

“The 1980s ended in the terrible Ouvéa massacre. Surely some lessons have been learnt from history? Independence is inevitable in the long run.”

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

A New Zealand solidarity group for Palestine with a focus on settler colonialism has condemned the latest atrocities by the Israeli military in its attack on Rafah — in defiance of the International Court of Justice order last Friday to halt the assault — and also French brutality in Kanaky New Caledonia.

In its statement, Justice for Palestine (J4Pal) said that Monday had been “a day of unconscionable and unforgivable violence” against the people of Rafah.

As global condemnation over the attack on displaced Palestinians in a tent camp and the UN Security Council convened an emergency meeting on the ground invasion, a new atrocity was reported yesterday.

• READ MORE: Israel’s war on Gaza live: Tent cities attacked as tanks roll into Rafah
• Other Israeli War on Gaza reports

Israeli forces shelled a tent camp in a designated “safe zone” west of Rafah and killed at least 21 people, including 13 women and girls, in the latest mass killing of Palestinian civilians.

“Gaza deserves better. Kanaky deserves better. Aotearoa deserves better. All our babies deserve better,” said the group.

“It is not our role to articulate what indigenous Kanak people are fighting for. Kanak people are the experts in their own lives and struggle, and they must be listened to on their own terms at this critical moment,” the statement said.

“Our work for Palestinian rights is, however, part of a larger struggle against settler-colonialism. It is our duty, honour and joy to make connections in this common struggle.

‘Dangerous ideologies’
“These connections begin right here in Aotearoa, where Māori never ceded sovereignty. As New Zealand’s current government, France and Israel all demonstrate, the dangerous ideologies of colonialism are not yet the footnotes in history we strive to make them.

“We recognise common injustices:

• The failure of media to place the current uprising in the context of 150 years of history of French violence in Kanak,
• The characterisation of Kanak activists as ‘terrorists’ all while a militarised foreign force represses them on their own land,
• The deliberate transfer of a settler population to disenfranchise indigenous people and their control over their own territory,
• A refusal to engage with the righteous aspirations of the Kanak people, and
•The lack of support from Western governments around these aspirations.”

Justice for Palestine said in its statement that it was its sincere belief that a world without colonialism was not only necessary, it was near.

“With thanks to the steadfastness of not only Kanak, Māori and Palestinian people, and indigenous people everywhere.

“The struggle of the Kanak people is an inspiration and reminder that while we may face the brute power of empire, we are many, and we are not going anywhere.”

Justice for Palestine is a human rights organisation working in Aotearoa to promote justice, peace and freedom for the Palestinian people.

It added: “Now is the hour for Te Tiriti justice, and liberation for both the Kanak and Palestinian people.”

Jessie Ounei is following in her mum’s footsteps as a Kanak pro-independence activist.

Last Wednesday, Ounei organised a rally outside the French Embassy in Wellington to “shed light on what is happening in New Caledonia“.

She said there was not enough information, and the information that had been reported in mainstream media was skewed.

• READ MORE: Blood in the Pacific: 30 years on from the Ouvéa Island cave massacre
• Gossanna cave siege tragic tale of betrayal — David Robie
• French repressive policies in New Caledonia have ‘betrayed’ Kanak hopes — David Robie video
• Other Kanaky New Caledonia reports

“It is depicting us as savages, as violent, and not giving proper context to what has actually happened, and what is happening in New Caledonia,” Ounei said.

Her mum, Susanna Ounei, was born in Ouvéa in New Caledonia, and was a founding member of the Kanak independence movement, now the umbrella group FLNKS (Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front).

“Ouvéa is the island where 19 of our fathers, uncles, and brothers were massacred,” Jessie Ounei said.

“And it was actually that massacre that was a catalyst for the Matignon Accords and eventually the Nouméa Accords.”

More power to Kanaks
In 1988, an agreement, the Matignon Accord, between the French and the Kanaks was signed, which proposed a referendum on independence to be held by 1998. Instead, a subsequent agreement, the Nouméa Accord, was signed in 1998, which would give more power to Kanaks over a 20-year transition period, with three independence referenda to be held from 2018.

In 2018, the first of the three referenda were held with 57 percent voting against, and 43 voting for independence from France.

In 2020, there was a slight increase in the “yes” votes with 47 percent voting for, and 53 percent voting against independence.

The third referendum however was mired in controversy and is at the centre of the current political unrest in New Caledonia.

The date for the vote, 12 December 2021, was announced by France without consensus and departed from the two-year gap between the referenda that had been held previously This drew the ire of pro-independence parties.

The parties called for the vote to be delayed by six months saying they were not able to campaign and mobilise voters during the pandemic and appealed for time to observe traditional mourning rites for the 280 Kanak people who died during a covid-19 outbreak.

France refused new referendum
France refused and Kanak leaders called for a boycott of the vote in December which resulted in a record low voter turnout of 44 percent, compared to 86 percent in the previous referendum, and the mostly pro-French voters registering an overwhelming 96 percent vote against New Caledonia becoming an independent country.

Kanak pro-independence parties do not recognise the result of the third referendum, saying a vote on independence could not be held without the participation of the colonised indigenous peoples.

But France and pro-independent French loyalists in New Caledonia insist the vote was held legally and the decision of Kanak people not to participate was their own and therefore the result was legitimate.

Because of this, for the past several years New Caledonia has been stuck in a kind of political limbo with France and the pro-French loyalists in New Caledonia pushing the narrative that the territory has voted “no” to independence three times and therefore must now negotiate a new permanent political status under France.

While on the other hand, pro-independence Kanaks insisting that the Nouméa accord which they interpreted as a pathway to decolonisation had failed and therefore a new pathway to self-determination needs to be negotiated.

Paris has made numerous attempts since 2021 to bring the two diametrically opposed sides in the territory together to decide on a common future but it has all so far been in vain.

New Caledonia’s ‘frozen’ electoral rolls
Despite the political impasse in the territory, France earlier this year proposed a constitutional amendment that would change the electoral roll in the territory sparking large scale protests on the Kanak side which were mirrored by support rallies organised by pro-French settlers.

But what is so controversial about a constitutional amendment?

Under the terms of the Nouméa Accord, voting in provincial elections was restricted to people who had resided in New Caledonia prior to 1998, and their children. The measure was aimed at giving greater representation to the Kanaks who had become a minority population in their own land and to prevent them becoming even more of a minority.

The French government’s proposed constitutional amendment would allow French residents who have lived in New Caledonia continuously for more than 10 years to vote. It is estimated this would enable a further 25,000 non-indigenous people, most of them pro-French settlers, to vote in local elections which would weaken the indigenous Kanak vote.

Despite multiple protests from indigenous Kanaks, who called on the French government to resolve the political impasse before making any electoral changes, Paris pressed ahead with the proposed legislation passing in both the Senate and the National Assembly.

On Monday 13 May, civil unrest erupted in the capital of Nouméa, with armed clashes between Kanak pro-independence protesters and security forces. Seven people have been killed, including two gendarmes, and hundreds of others have been injured.

Last Wednesday, Jessie Ounei organised a rally outside the French Embassy in Wellington to raise awareness of the violence against Kanak in New Caledonia.

“For decades, the Kanak independence movement has persevered in their pursuit of autonomy and self-determination, only to be met with broken promises and escalating violence orchestrated by the French government,” she said.

‘Time to stand in solidarity’
“It is time to stand in solidarity with the Kanak people and demand an end to this cycle of oppression and injustice.”

Ounei said she was very sad, and very angry, because it could have been prevented.

“This was not something that was a surprise, it was something that was foreseen, and it was warned about,” she said.

Ounei was also born in Ouvéa, and moved to Wellington in 2000 with her mum and her brother, Toui Jymmy Jinsokuna Burēdo Ounei. Susanna Ounei died in 2016, but had never gone back to New Caledonia, because she was disappointed in the direction of the independence movement.

“Ouvéa has a staunch history of taking a stand against French imperialism, colonialism,” Jessie Ounei said.

“I have grown up hearing, seeing and feeling the struggle of our people.”

She said her mum, and a group of activists, were the original people who had reclaimed Kanak identity.

“If I can stand here and say that I’m Kanak, it is because of those people,” she said.

Now Ounei has picked up the baton, and is following in her mum’s footsteps.

She said after spending her entire life watching her mum give herself to the cause, it was important for her to do the same.

“I have two daughters, I have family, if I don’t do this, I don’t know who else will,” she said.

“And I can’t just stand back. It’s not the way that I grew up. My mum wouldn’t have stood back. She never stood back.

“And even though I feel quite under-qualified to be here, I want to honour all the sacrifices that the activists, including my mum, made.”

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

There is an important story to be told behind the story Aotearoa New Zealand’s mainstream media has been reporting on in Kanaky New Caledonia. Beyond the efforts to evacuate New Zealanders lies a struggle for indigenous sovereignty and self-determination we here in Aotearoa can relate to.

Aotearoa is part of a whānau of Pacific nations, interconnected by Te Moana-nui-a-Kiwa. The history of Aotearoa is intricately woven into the broader history of the Pacific, where cultural interactions have shaped a rich tapestry over centuries.

The whakapapa connections between tangata whenua and tagata moana inform my political stance and commitment to indigenous rights throughout the Pacific. What happens in one part of the South Pacific ripples across to all of us that call the Pacific Ocean home.

• READ MORE:  Kanaky New Caledonia unrest: Macron lifts state of emergency ‘for time being’
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Since the late 1980s the Kanak independence movement showed itself to be consistently engaging with the Accords with Paris process in their struggle for self-determination.

The Nouméa Accord set out a framework for transferring power to the people of New Caledonia, through a series of referenda. It was only after France moved to unilaterally break with the accords and declare independence off the table that the country returned to a state of unrest.

Civil unrest in and around the capital Nouméa which has continued for two weeks, was prompted by Kanak anger over Paris changing the constitution to open up electoral rolls in its “overseas territory” in a way that effectively dilutes the voting power of the indigenous people.

Coming after the confused end of the Nouméa Accord in 2021, which left New Caledonia’s self-determination path clouded with uncertainty, it was inevitable that there would be trouble.

Flew halfway across world
That France’s President Emmanuel Macron flew across the world to Noumea last week for one day of talks in a bid to end the civil unrest underlines the seriousness of the crisis.

But while the deployment of more French security forces to the territory may have succeeded in quelling the worst of the unrest for now, Macron’s visit was unsuccessful because he failed to commit to pulling back on the electoral changes or to signal a meaningful way forward on independence for New Caledonia.

Paris’ tone-deafness to the Kanaks’ concerns was evident in its refusal to postpone the last of the three referendums under the Nouméa Accord during the pandemic, when the indigenous Melanesians boycotted the poll because it was a time of mourning in their communities. Kanaks consider that last referendum to have no legitimacy.

But Macron’s government has simply cast aside the accord process to move ahead unilaterally with a new statute for New Caledonia.

As the Kanaky Aotearoa Solidarity group said in a letter to the French Ambassador in Wellington this week, “it is regrettable that France’s decision to obstruct the legitimate aspirations of the Kanak people to their right to self-determination has led to such destruction and loss of life”.

Why should New Zealand care about the crisis? New Caledonia is practically Aotearoa’s next door neighbour — a three-hour flight from Auckland. Natural disasters in the Pacific such as cyclones remind us fairly regularly how our country has a leading role to play in the region.

But we can’t take this role for granted, nor choose to look the other way because our “ally“ France has it under control. And we certainly shouldn’t ignore the roots of a crisis in a neighbouring territory where frustrations have boiled over in a pattern that’s not unusual in the Pacific Islands region, and especially Melanesia.

There is an urgent need for regional assistance to drive reconciliation. The Pacific Islands Forum, as the premier regional organisation, must move beyond words and take concrete actions to support the Kanak people.

Biketawa Declaration provides a mechanism
The forum’s Biketawa Declaration provides a mechanism for regional responses to crisis management and conflict resolution. The New Caledonian crisis surely qualifies, although France would be uncomfortable with any forum intervention.

But acting in good faith as a member of the regional family is what Paris signed up to when its territories in the Pacific were granted full forum membership.

Why is a European nation like France still holding on to its colonial possessions in the Pacific? Kanaky New Caledonia, Maohi Nui French Polynesia, and Wallis & Futuna are on the UN list of non-self-governing territories for whom decolonisation is incomplete.

However, in the case of Kanaky, Paris’ determination to hold on is partly due to a desire for global influence and is also, in no small way, linked to the fact that the territory has over 20 percent of the world’s known nickel reserves.

Failing to address the remnants of colonialism will continue to devastate lives and livelihoods across Oceania, as evidenced by the struggles in Bougainville, Māo’hi Nui, West Papua, and Guåhan.

New Zealand should be supportive of an efficient and orderly decolonisation process. We can’t rely on France alone to achieve this, especially as the unrest in New Caledonia is the inevitable result of years of political and social marginalisation of Kanak people.

The struggle of indigenous Kanaks in New Caledonia is part of a broader movement for self-determination and anti-colonialism across the Pacific. By supporting the Kanak people’s self-determination, we honour our shared history and whakapapa connections, advocating for a future where indigenous rights and aspirations are respected and upheld.

Kanaky Au Pouvoir.

Teanau Tuiono is a Green Party MP in Aotearoa New Zealand and its spokesperson for Pasifika peoples. This article was first published by The Press and is republished by Asia Pacific Report with the author’s permission.

French President Emmanuel Macron has announced the 12-day state of emergency imposed in New Caledonia on May 15 would not be extended “for the time being”.

The decision not to renew the state of emergency was mainly designed to “allow the components of the pro-independence FLNKS (Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front) to hold meetings and to be able to go to the roadblocks and ask for them to be lifted”, Macron said in a media release late yesterday.

The state of emergency officially ended at 5am today (Nouméa time).

• READ MORE: French repressive policies in New Caledonia have ‘betrayed’ Kanak hopes — David Robie video
• Amid Kanaky New Caledonia’s unrest, I saw first-hand the same colonial white privilege that caused it
• West Papua independence group slams French ‘modern-day colonialism’
• Other Kanaky New Caledonia reports

It was imposed after deadly and destructive riots erupted in the French Pacific archipelago with a backdrop of ongoing protests against proposed changes to the French Constitution, that would allow citizens having resided there for at least 10 years to take part in local elections.

Pro-independence parties feared the opening of conditions of eligibility would significantly weaken the indigenous Kanak population’s political representation.

During a 17-hour visit to New Caledonia on Thursday last week, Macron set the lifting of blockades as the precondition to the resumption of “concrete and serious” political talks regarding New Caledonia’s long-term political future.

The talks were needed in order to find a successor agreement, including all parties (pro-independence and “loyalists” or pro-France), to the Nouméa Accord signed in 1998.

Attempts to hold these talks, over the past two-and-a-half years, have so far failed.

House arrests lifted
Not renewing the state of emergency would also put an end to restriction on movements and a number of house arrests placed on several pro-independence radical leaders — including Christian Téin, the leader of a so-called CCAT (Field Action Coordination Committee), close to the more radical fringe of FLNKS.

The CCAT is regarded as the main organiser of the protests which led to ongoing unrest.

In a speech published on social networks on Friday after Macron’s visit, Téin called for the easing of security measures to allow him to speak to militants, but in the same breath he assured supporters the intention was to “remain mobilised and maintain resistance”.

Since they broke out on May 13, the riots have caused seven deaths, hundreds of injuries and estimated damage of almost 1 billion euros (NZ$1.8 billion) to the local economy. Up to 500 companies, business and retail stores had also been looted or destroyed by arson.

Following Macron’s visit last week, a “mission” consisting of three high-level public servants has remained in New Caledonia to foster a resumption of political dialogue between leaders of all parties.

More reinforcements
In the same announcement, the French presidential office said a fresh contingent of “seven additional gendarme mobile forces units, for a total of 480” would be flown to New Caledonia “within the coming hours”.

Macron said this would bring the number of security forces in New Caledonia to 3500.

He once again condemned the blockades and looting, saying “this violence cannot pretend to represent a legitimate political action”.

In parallel to the lifting of the state of emergency, a dusk-to-dawn curfew remained in force.

On the ground, mainly in Nouméa and its outskirts, security operations were ongoing, with several neighbourhoods and main access roads still blocked and controlled by pockets of rioters.

At the weekend, intrusions from groups of rioters forced French forces to evacuate some 30 residents (mostly of European descent) some of whose houses had been set on fire.

La Tontouta airport still closed
Meanwhile, the international Nouméa-La Tontouta airport would remain closed to all commercial flights until June 2, it was announced on Monday. The airport, which remained cut off from the capital Nouméa due to pro-independence roadblocks, has been closed for the past three weeks.

French delegate minister for Overseas Marie Guévenoux, who arrived with Macron last week and has remained in New Caledonia since, assured on Sunday the situation in Nouméa and its outskirts was “improving”.

“Police and gendarmes are slowly regaining ground… The (French) state will regain all of these neighbourhoods,” she told France Television.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

The coverage by the New Zealand media over the brutal crackdown in New Caledonia by the French on the indigenous Kanak people as they erupted in protest at France’s naked gerrymandering of electoral law has been depressingly shallow.

To date most mainstream NZ media (with the exception RNZ Pacific, Māori media and the excellent David Robie) have been focused on getting scared Kiwi tourists back home, very few have actually explained what the hell has been going on.

This sudden eruption of protest follows a corrupt new draft law French law allowing French people to vote after only 10 years living there.

• READ MORE: Other Kanaky New Caledonia reports

This law is a direct attack on Kanak sovereignty, it’s a purely gerrymandering response to ensure a democratic majority to prevent any independence referendum.

While no one else is allowed in there, as Asia Pacific Report reports the French are using heavy handed tactics…

Pacific civil society and solidarity groups today stepped up their pressure on the French government, accusing it of a “heavy-handed” crackdown on indigenous Kanak protest in New Caledonia, comparing it to Indonesian security forces crushing West Papuan dissent.

A state of emergency was declared last week, at least [seven] people have been killed — [five] of them indigenous Kanaks — and more than 200 people have been arrested after rioting in the capital Nouméa followed independence protests over controversial electoral changes

In Sydney, the Australia West Papua Association declared it was standing in solidarity with the Kanak people in their self-determination struggle against colonialism.

Don’t stand idly by
We should not as a Pacific Island nation be standing idly by while the French are giving the indigenous people the bash.

We need to be asking what the hell has France’s elite troops being doing while no one is watching. The New Zealand government must ask the French Ambassador in and put our concerns to them directly.

Calm must come back but there has to be a commitment to the 1998 Noumea Accord which clearly stipulates that only the Kanak and long-term residents prior to 1998 would be eligible to vote in provincial ballots and local referendums.

To outright vote against this as the French National Assembly did last week is outrageous and will add an extra 25,000 voters into the election dramatically changing the electoral demographics in New Caledonia to the disadvantage of indigenous Kanaks who make up 42 percent of the 270,000 population.

This was avoidable, but the French are purposely trying to screw the scrum and rig the outcome.

We should be very clear that is unacceptable.

Our very narrow media focus on just getting Kiwis out of New Caledonia with no reflection whatsoever on what the French are doing is pathetic.

Republished from The Daily Blog with permission.

Indigenous Kanaks in Kanaky New Caledonia have revolted in the last two weeks in response to moves by the colonial power France to undermine moves towards independence in the Pacific territory.

Journalist David Robie from Aotearoa New Zealand spoke to the Green Left Show today about the issues involved.

We acknowledge that this video was produced on stolen Aboriginal land. We express solidarity with ongoing struggles for justice for First Nations people and pay our respects to Elders past and present.

• READ MORE: ‘France lost the plot’ – journalist David Robie on Kanaky New Caledonia riots — RNZ Pacific interview with David Robie
• Kanaky in flames: Five takeaways from the New Caledonia independence riots — David Robie
• Media fuss over stranded tourists, but Kanaks face existential struggle — Solidarity interview with David Robie

Interviewer: Alex Bainbridge of Green Left
Journalist: Dr David Robie, editor of Asia Pacific Report and deputy chair of Asia Pacific Media Network
Programme: 28min Link to: https://youtu.be/ZPWw2oSUGFs