French security forces have regained control of New Caledonia’s capital Noumea, France’s interior minister says, two weeks after deadly riots broke out in the Pacific territory leaving seven people dead, hundreds injured and several hundred arrested.
Gerald Darmanin said on X, formerly Twitter, that around 400 officers — including elite anti-terrorism and anti-organised crime police — had cleared 26 barricades and arrested 12 people in the Riviere-Salee district in the city’s north.
He said it was “the last neighbourhood of Noumea that was not under control”.
A police source told AFP that Riviere-Salee had been criss-crossed with “many barricades manned by dangerous individuals, and several snipers were spotted”.
The violence erupted over a planned voting reform that indigenous Kanaks fear will marginalise them politically.
Other districts of greater Noumea remain blockaded, said Sonia Backes, a pro-France politician who heads New Caledonia’s southern province.
She urged government forces to clear the remaining neighbourhoods as soon as possible.
An AFP journalist saw another blockade being dismantled in La Tamoa, on the main road to Noumea’s international airport of La Tontouta.
The airport in Noumea was shut on May 14, a day after protests erupted.
The hub is still closed to commercial flights, although the access road was one of the first targets for police clearance actions.
Local carrier Aircalin said on Friday that La Tontouta airport will not reopen until at least 9am Monday June 2.
The unrest saw both Australia and France fly out hundreds of nationals and tourists on several evacuation flights.
Priscilla Paita opposed the voting reform and promised to continue protesting against it.
“We need to make ourselves heard,” she added, as others vowed to rebuild the barricade as soon as the police left.
Smoke billows from other towns
Days of clashes, looting and arson have left seven people dead, two of them police officers, and hundreds injured.
More than 500 businesses have been destroyed, labour official Thierry Santa said, while an overnight curfew remains in force across the whole of New Caledonia.
In Dumbea, north of Noumea, thick black smoke was rising from a local gym Friday, while elsewhere separatist blockades were still slowing traffic.
Military ships delivered food and medicine to New Caledonia’s north province on Thursday and Friday as road transport has been severely disrupted, imposing shortages.
France’s top official in New Caledonia, high commissioner Louis Le Franc, said a total of 666 people have been arrested in connection with the unrest.
He added that almost 1,950 tourists who were trapped on the archipelago have so far been able to leave.
New Caledonia has been ruled from Paris since the nineteenth century but many Indigenous Kanaks want fuller autonomy or independence.
France had been planning to give voting rights to thousands of non-Indigenous long-term residents, something Kanaks said would dilute the influence of their votes.
French President Emmanuel Macron pledged during a lightning trip to the territory last week that the voting reforms would “not be forced through”.
Since then, tensions have eased significantly and a state of emergency was lifted on Tuesday.
New Caledonia is one of several territories in the Caribbean, Indian Ocean and Pacific that are still part of France in the post-colonial era.
AFP/AP