New Caledonia’s high commissioner said Tuesday that shots had been fired at security forces during a night of riots in the French Pacific territory that saw vehicles torched and shops looted.
“Shots were fired at the gendarmes using high calibre weapons and hunting rifles. There have been no deaths,” High Commissioner of the Republic Louis Le Franc told reporters.
Authorities in the French-run archipelago announced a night-time curfew Tuesday and a ban on public gatherings after protests against proposed voting reforms that have angered separatists.
One business group said around 30 shops, factories and other sites in and around capital Noumea had been set ablaze, while an AFP journalist saw burned-out cars and smoking remains of tyres and wooden pallets littering the streets.
“The police station nearby was on fire and a car was too, in front of my house. There was non-stop shouting and explosions, I felt like I was in a war,” said Sylvie, whose family has lived in New Caledonia for several generations.
“We are alone. Who is going to protect us?” she told AFP, asking to be identified only by her first name.
From late Monday night, groups of young masked or hooded demonstrators took over several roundabouts and confronted police, who responded with non-lethal rounds.
Rioters attacked police stations with “sabres,” threw rocks or shot at them, police said.
A total of 82 people were arrested, Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said, while Noumea authorities reported 51 police officers injured.
Chief gendarme Nicolas Mattheos said there had been “a real unleashing of hatred, an outpouring of often intoxicated young people who had obviously been manipulated, with unprecedented violence”.
The High Commissioner, the representative of the French state in New Caledonia, said on Tuesday that “very intense public order disturbances… are still ongoing at this time,” as some people were still manning barricades.
The official said he was “massively mobilising internal security and civil security forces” but “no serious injuries were reported among the population”.
The New Caledonia government appealed for “reason and calm” and called on “all Caledonians to demonstrate a sense of responsibility” following the night of unrest.
Authorities urged around 30 rioters holed up in a burned factory on the outskirts of Noumea to leave, warning that hydrogen tanks in the building risked exploding.
– Frozen voter lists –
The unrest erupted Monday as protesters demonstrated against a constitutional reform being debated in the National Assembly in Paris that aims to expand the electorate in the territory’s provincial elections.
France vowed in the Noumea Accord of 1998 to gradually give more political power to the Pacific island territory of nearly 300,000 people.
Under the agreement, New Caledonia has held three referendums over its ties with France, all rejecting independence.
The pro-independence Indigenous Kanaks rejected the result of the last referendum held in 2021, which they boycotted due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
The Noumea Accord has also meant that New Caledonia’s voter lists have not been updated since 1998 — meaning that island residents who have arrived from mainland France or elsewhere anytime in the past 25 years do not have the right to take part in provincial polls.
The French government has branded the exclusion of one out of five people from voting as “absurd”, while separatists fear that expanding voter lists would benefit pro-France politicians and “further minimise the Indigenous Kanak people”.
After a night of unrest, the New Caledonia high commissioner announced a ban on public gatherings and the sale of alcohol and said a curfew would be imposed from 6:00 pm Tuesday until 6:00 am Wednesday.
“The high commissioner calls on the population to stay at home and limit their travel in the coming hours.”
Schools and colleges are closed until further notice and the international airport is also shut.
“I feel sad,” Jean-Franck Jallet, who owns a butcher shop that firefighters managed to rescue from the flames. “I thought it was possible for us (islanders) to live side by side, but it hasn’t worked. There are too many lies.”
New Zealand said Tuesday Foreign Minister Winston Peters had cancelled his visit to New Caledonia due to the unrest.
During a visit to the territory last year, President Emmanuel Macron said he wanted a revised constitutional status for New Caledonia to be in place by the beginning of 2024.
Macron has been seeking to reassert his country’s importance in the Pacific region, where China and the United States are vying for influence but France has territories such as New Caledonia and French Polynesia.
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