Two people were killed during a French police operation in New Caledonia on Thursday, according to French media. The police operation took place amid unrest between French loyalists and indigenous Kanak people in the territory.
French forces took to the streets of San Louis in Le Mont-Dore, New Caledonia, and targeted people wanted for armed robbery. A Kanak woman told French News, “At 11 pm, there were the first gunshots [and] it then continued all night.” The police confiscated the rifles of Kanak people, and the Kanak people shot at the French police. The police returned fire, killing two men.
The police high commissioner of New Caledonia said the police “followed the standard guidelines for self-defense” since the Kanak people “fired at the police to kill them [and] the police fired back.” Spokespersons of Kanak independence groups, however, have condemned the event as a violation of the rule of law and as “summary executions.”
The French state and the Kanak people in New Caledonia have a history of colonialism and repression. France colonized New Caledonia in 1853 to “secure for France a position in the Pacific required by the interests of the military and commercial navy.” Since then, France and New Caledonia have had a bloody history with gradual reform. The Noumea Accord, an agreement to slowly de-colonize New Caledonia, was signed by France in 1998 and ratified by 71.86 percent of New Caledonians.
Several critics, however, have claimed France has not followed through with the agreement. After France adopted a bill to allow more French residents to vote in New Caledonia, the Kanak people and the Kanak Socialist National Liberation Front (FLNKS) made accusations that the bill was a way to further disenfranchise the Kanak community. They claimed that since the Kanak people make up roughly 40 people of the population of New Caledonia, allowing French residents to vote reduces Kanak representation within parliament due to the proportional representation system. Critics also fear that by giving more French people the right to vote in elections, French nationalism will strengthen in politics and the process of decolonization will be further slowed.
Isabella Merle, a historian specializing in colonialism in New Caledonia, said:
While the Nouméa Accord enabled the transfer of powers, New Caledonia’s colonial history seems to have been forgotten in the (recent) parliamentary debate, with some representatives ignoring it … The idea of this reform is to return to an initial situation where any French person arriving in the territory had the right to vote, while the Kanaks did not. This reopening of the floodgates is causing tensions, as expected and announced.
Violence has flared in New Caledonia in recent months, with deadly riots breaking out in May over proposed electoral changes. Violence again erupted in June after police detained independence leader Christian Tein in connection to the protests. In combination with France’s recent ban on TikTok in New Caledonia, human rights organizations have expressed concern that France is silencing the voices of the Kanak people in the territory.
