The police station in Hienghène, a remote town on the Pacific island of New Caledonia, has been barricaded for almost three weeks. A few dozen protesters blocked the access road to the station and took turns guarding from the outside. Their cause is evident in the words written in chalk on the road: the names of three prominent French politicians, including the president, along with the word “Assassins.”
The standoff is an example of the uncomfortable stalemate that currently exists in New Caledonia, where protests against more than 170 years of French rule turned violent last month and brought the territory to the brink of civil war. Seven people were killed, many more were injured, and businesses suffered hundreds of millions of dollars in losses.
France quelled the worst of the violence by sending thousands of armed police into the semi-autonomous territory. President Emmanuel Macron even made a surprise visit. Macron ordered a day-long state of emergency, banned the use of TikTok and closed the territory’s main airport. Those restrictions have since been lifted and commercial flights are slowly resuming from a smaller landing strip near the capital, Noumea, although the territory’s main airport remains closed.
Authorities continue to impose a nighttime curfew and a ban on alcohol sales, while indigenous Kanak protesters maintain barricades on the outskirts of Noumea and in remote towns such as Hienghene.
“We close their door and keep them there and make them see what it feels like when a Kanak boy is held in his jail in Noumea,” Jonas Tein, a protester in Hienghene, said of the city’s police station, which appears to have been replenished. through periodic visits by police helicopters. “We tried to stay calm,” he said, but the French police crackdown made him “want to have guns and do what they did in Noumea.”
Tensions over French rule have been simmering in New Caledonia since the civil war of the 1980s. The current unrest has its roots in a proposal by Macron that would add thousands of French immigrants to New Caledonia’s electoral rolls. Macron described the change as a step towards full democracy in the territory. But for many Kanaks it was a betrayal of a decades-old peace agreement. He also worried that the influx of new voters would make it impossible to achieve independence in any future referendum.
New Caledonia and its vast nickel deposits have new strategic value for France in the Pacific, where China has increasingly been fighting for influence. An independent New Caledonia, French loyalists argue, could easily tilt toward Beijing.
During his trip to New Caledonia, Macron announced that he would delay his voter registration proposal. Kanak leaders and some moderate French loyalists have since urged him to withdraw it entirely.
“The only way to calm the situation is to remove the text” of the constitutional amendment, said Joël Tjibaou, who is helping lead the siege on the Hienghène police station. Tjibaou’s father was a prominent Kanak leader who was killed after negotiating an end to the territory’s civil war in the 1980s.
Politicians from the territory’s pro-independence and loyalist parties are now working with a delegation of senior French officials to find a compromise that could resolve tensions, although participants warn that progress will be slow.
“The State has the surveillance, but we have the time,” Roch Wamytan, pro-independence president of the Congress of New Caledonia, told local media.
Independence leaders have called for an end to the violence. However, the unrest has made some white residents of New Caledonia anxious about their future. Mining has made New Caledonia prosperous, but there is stark economic inequality between the whites and the Kanaks, who are now a minority in their homeland.
Nicolas Sougnac lives in Koumac, a settlement north of Noumea. He said that although the protests have not sparked violence in his city, they have cut off fuel supplies and made it difficult to obtain food. He said he felt like he had been taken “hostage” and that the French government had “abandoned” him.
“The last few weeks have shown that there is no future for France in New Caledonia unless it can reach some kind of agreement with the aspirations of the independence movement,” said Adrian Muckle, a history professor at Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand. “It has really underlined the ability of the independence movement to bring the territory to an economic standstill.”
Most of the unrest has been concentrated around Noumea, in southern New Caledonia. French authorities are investigating several episodes from previous weeks: some Kanak protesters were shot by unknown assailants; one video showed French police officers forcing a Kanak protester to kneel so an officer could kick his head; and a police officer of Kanak descent was reportedly severely beaten by members of a local French militia.
Protesters have killed two police officers. According to French authorities, 192 more officers have been injured. Police leaders have said protesters set up some barricades with gas tanks. A police officer was injured after falling into a manhole that protesters turned into a hidden trap. This week there were reports of more shootings.
A spokeswoman for Louis Le Franc, France’s top official in New Caledonia, declined to comment.
The death toll from the current violence is much lower than that of New Caledonia’s civil war. However, “the magnitude of the damage that has been caused to Noumea is much greater,” Dr Muckle said. “For many New Caledonians it is a real shock what can be done in such a short time. “Many people are seriously thinking about their future in New Caledonia.”
Among them is Lizzie Carboni, a writer from Noumea. There are armed police stationed throughout your neighborhood. On Friday, a protester walked down their street threatening to burn down residents’ homes. “I feel safe during the day,” Carboni said. “But at night, you can never be sure that a rock won’t be thrown at your window.”
Mrs. Carboni is now trying to leave the territory. Last week she attended an online seminar on migration to New Zealand. She found over a hundred other people on the call, most of whom appeared to be New Caledonians.
“When I see how quickly the chaos came, I can never know what tomorrow will be like,” he said. “There is no trust anymore.”