Protesters in New Caledonia and police fight ahead of Macron’s visit

By Kirsty Needham

(Reuters) – Protesters in New Caledonia set up new barricades overnight in cat-and-mouse games with French police reinforcements, an independence group said on Wednesday, ahead of the arrival of President Emmanuel Macron after the worst unrest in 40 years.

Macron is scheduled to land in the French overseas territory in the Pacific on Thursday after the government’s electoral reforms passed a week ago led to violence that left six people dead and a trail of destruction with shops looted, cars and buildings set alight. Some leaders fear the change will dilute the voting power of indigenous Kanaks, who make up 40% of the population.

New Caledonia’s government said a major cyberattack carried out shortly after Macron’s visit was announced was aimed at crippling internet services. Millions of emails were sent to a single address.

The attack has been stopped and its origin is unknown, territorial government official Christopher Gyges said in a livestreamed press conference on Wednesday.

“The various emails that were sent came from several countries at the same time. They wanted to block the New Caledonia cable,” Gyges said.

The French High Commission said Macron would be accompanied by defense and interior ministers at Thursday’s talks and that about 100 members of the elite tactical task force GIGN had been deployed in New Caledonia.

BARRICADES, FIRE

The High Commission announced on Wednesday that over 1,000 security forces from France were on site, around 90 street barricades had been cleared and, despite two fires in Noumea, relative calm had returned overnight. About 20 people were arrested on Tuesday; A total of 280 people were arrested last week.

Jimmy Naouna of New Caledonia’s Front de Libération Nationale Kanak et Socialiste (FLNKS) said the pro-independence political party had called on protesters to remove roadblocks affecting freedom of movement and food supplies in the capital Noumea although they continued to appear overnight.

“The police forces set out to clear these barricades, but immediately afterwards the youths rebuilt them, so it’s almost a game of cat and mouse. We will see what happens when Macron is here,” Naouna said in an interview with Reuters.

“I am worried about my city, which is largely destroyed, especially in the northern district… Noumea is today a martyr city, a city under siege,” Noumea Mayor Sonia Lagarde, a member of Macron’s Renaissance party, told France 2 TV.

Lagarde said she hoped Macron’s visit would help “cool things down” and that he would announce a postponement of a joint session of the French National Assembly and Senate to ratify electoral reform passed by the lower house.

The approved changes would allow French residents who have lived in New Caledonia for ten years to participate in the provincial elections. Local politicians fear that this move could dilute the Kanak vote. However, the government believes that this step is necessary for the elections to be democratic.

Voter rolls were frozen in 1998 under the Noumea Accords, which ended a decade of violence and paved the way for gradual autonomy that critics say has now derailed.

FLNKS, the party of New Caledonia’s territorial president Louis Mapou, wants Paris to scrap electoral reform.

“We expect that when he travels to Kanaky he will make a clear announcement that he is withdrawing this electoral law, but if he comes here just as a provocation, it could only go bad,” Naouna said, using the indigenous name of the Island.

The Field Action Coordination Cell (CCAT), the organizer of the protests, called on protesters on social media to display Kanak flags and banners against the electoral law amendment.

“We don’t know what Macron and his team are planning, but we remain mobilized and confident for Kanaky,” it said.

Macron will meet with elected officials and local representatives on Thursday for a day of talks on politics and the island’s reconstruction, his aides said.

France annexed New Caledonia in 1853 and granted the colony overseas territory status in 1946. New Caledonia is the world’s third largest nickel mining country, but the sector is in crisis and one in five inhabitants lives below the poverty line.

The island lies more than 16,000 km (10,000 miles) from mainland France and 1,500 km (930 miles) east of Australia.

(Reporting by Kirsty Needham in Sydney and Camille Raynaud; Additional reporting by David Brunnstrom in Washington and Dominique Vidalon in Paris; Editing by Lincoln Feast.)