France has sent extra police squadrons to quell riots on the Pacific island of New Caledonia after the French Pacific archipelago was rocked by a night of rioting against a controversial voting reform that has angered pro-independence forces.

Shots were fired at security forces, vehicles torched and shops looted in the rioting — the worst such violence in New Caledonia since deadly unrest in the 1980s.

More than 130 people were arrested, according to the French high commission of the republic in New Caledonia.

The proposed reforms would allow French residents who have lived in New Caledonia for 10 years to vote in provincial elections — a move local leaders fear will dilute the vote of pro-independence Indigenous Kanaks.

According to French media, the French National Assembly adopted the constitutional reform late on Tuesday local time, but it would still have to pass a second round to become law.

Kanak journalist Andre Qaeze said the situation remained tense in the capital, Noumea.

“The French government, they are very specialised. They have the means, they have guns, they have the cars.”

“This evening, there is a plane which will arrive from Paris with soldiers, they are arriving to help the police forces to try to stop all this violence.”

Authorities announced a night-time curfew on Tuesday and a ban on public gatherings, while the main airport was closed.

Despite the curfew, violence continued on Tuesday evening. 

One business group said about 30 shops, factories and other sites in and around Noumea had been set ablaze, while an AFP journalist saw burned-out cars and smoking remains of tyres and wooden pallets littering the streets.

“We are at home. We cannot take our cars and go to our jobs because of the barriers they put on the road,” Qaeze said. 

From late Monday night, groups of young masked or hooded demonstrators took over several roundabouts and confronted police, who responded with non-lethal rounds.

Noumea was covered by a cloud of black smoke and a local sports facility had been set ablaze, according to local television. 

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

While it has on three occasions rejected independence in referendums, independence retains support, particularly among the Indigenous Kanak people.

The federal government said it was monitoring the situation closely and advised Australian travellers to exercise a “high degree of caution” in Noumea and avoid demonstrations and public gatherings. 

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French president and PM calls for calm

In a statement, the government of New Caledonia, which is helmed by prominent pro-independence leader Louis Mapou, called for “sanity and calm”.

“Every reason for discontent, frustration and anger could not justify undermining or destroying what the country has been able to build for decades and mortgaging the future,” it said. 

France’s prime minister on Tuesday also urged calm and dialogue. 

“Violence is never a solution,” Prime Minister Gabriel Attal told reporters during a trip to eastern France.

He said the government’s “priority … is to re-establish order, calm and serenity” in New Caledonia.

He later told parliament: “What matters is defusing tensions. What matters is dialogue. What matters is the construction of a common, political, global solution.”

Mr Attal said that Mr Macron would not rush into convening a special congress of the two houses of parliament required to rubber-stamp the bill.

Instead, he would invite representatives of the territory’s population — both pro- and anti-independence — to Paris for talks on the future status of New Caledonia, after decades of tensions over France’s role.

“It’s through talking, and only through talking, that we can find a solution,” Mr Attal told politicians.

“All we want is to find an overall political agreement, with those in favour of and against independence.”

He did not spell out what such a deal could cover.

Pro-independence party leader Daniel Goa asked the youths to “go home”, and condemned looting and abuses. 

But he added: “The unrest of the last 24 hours reveals the determination of our young people to no longer let France take control of them.”

Pro-independence protests

At a rally in Paris, pro-independence protesters said the bill should be withdrawn.

“If there is violence today [in New Caledonia], it’s in response to the violence we’ve suffered from since colonisation,” Kanak youth leader Daniel Wea, 43, told Reuters, saying the planned electoral changes would leave the Kanaks isolated on their island.

“We’re here to show … we will fight until we get what we want: independence,” said Wendy Gowe, 24, whose grandfathers died when violence flared up on the island in the 1980s.

New Caledonia became a French overseas territory in 1946.

Starting in the 1970s, in the wake of a nickel boom that drew outsiders, tensions rose on the island, with various conflicts between Paris and Kanak independence movements.

A 1998 Noumea Accord helped end the conflict by outlining a path to gradual autonomy and restricting voting to the Indigenous Kanak and migrants living in New Caledonia before 1998.

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

“How can we accept that our future is decided by Paris?” Qaeze said.

“Paris has to respect what we have built since 1988.

“And all the violence we see is a form of anger.”

Secretary-general of the Pacific Islands Forum Henry Puna said that rioting and upheavals In New Caledonia were not a surprise to him.

He told Pacific media that the Kanak people could not participate fully in the independence referendum of 2021.

“It was unfortunate that it was allowed to go ahead during that time. Because we were in the middle of COVID and the Kanaky custom is that when somebody passes, they mourn that for one year.

“As a result, they didn’t want to take part in the referendum, because they couldn’t go against the tradition and go campaigning.”

ABC/Wires