a brand new Defense Council is held in Paris | EUROtoday

The state of affairs stays very tense in New Caledonia, the place the closure of the airport has been prolonged whereas the territory continues to be prey to blockages regardless of the large sources dedicated by the State to revive order, earlier than a brand new Council of protection scheduled for the night of Monday May 20.

No approach out of the intense disaster skilled by the South Pacific archipelago (270,000 inhabitants) is rising on this Pentecost Monday, a public vacation, after six deaths and per week of riots in response to a reform of the electoral physique decried by the separatists.

Prime Minister Gabriel Attal himself warned “that there is still a way to go before returning to normal” in New Caledonia.

“The internal security forces continue to arrive in large numbers on site thanks to the airlift that we have put in place. We are making progress. No fewer than 76 roadblocks have been destroyed on the road linking Nouméa to its airport,” he mentioned. he laid out in a message posted on X, additionally reaffirming his authorities's willpower to “restore order”.

From the left to the far proper together with the bulk, voices are rising day by day to demand a postponement of the constitutional invoice, which have to be adopted in Congress earlier than the top of June.

Four presidents of abroad executives (Reunion, Guadeloupe, Martinique, Guyana) are even calling for his “immediate withdrawal” with a view to “avoid a civil war”.

“The President of the Republic must not convene the Congress in Versailles. Not now. I think the president has understood this,” Sonia Lagarde, the Renaissance mayor of Nouméa, advised Le Monde, who claims to have had contacts with Emmanuel Macron.

Stop or nonetheless? The progress of the constitutional textual content, accused by the separatists of “even further minimizing the indigenous Kanak people” by unfreezing the electoral physique of the provincial elections, is within the palms of the Head of State, who convened a 3rd Defense Council in six days in New Caledonia.

The first, Wednesday, preceded the institution of the state of emergency. A second, on Thursday, had ready the sending of police and gendarmerie reinforcements to the Oceanian territory, the place the police pressure now exceeds 2,700 personnel.

“The situation remains precarious”

But on the bottom, the outcomes of this large deployment are awaited, whereas shortages are growing.

An indication of difficulties in getting the state of affairs below management, Nouméa worldwide airport will stay closed to business flights till Thursday 9 a.m. (midnight in Paris), introduced the supervisor of the platform, the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of New Caledonia. And this regardless of repeated requests from Australia and New Zealand to have the ability to evacuate their nationals.

“The situation remains precarious, even if it is improving,” mentioned the spokesperson for the Ministry of the Interior, Camille Chaize, on BFMTV on Monday, after one other night time of violence and harm.

“The State is there”, maintained on the identical channel that of the gendarmerie, Marie-Laure Pezant, recalling that new reinforcements arrived “every day”. “The situation is evolving, we are doing all we can to regain calm,” she additionally declared.

Read additionallyNew Caledonia: what options to get the archipelago out of the disaster?

A extra measured tone than that of the authorities beforehand praising the “successes” of the operation of 600 gendarmes, launched Sunday on the strategic axis of round fifty kilometers linking Nouméa to La Tontouta airport, blocked in lots of locations by independence activists.

The street continues to be not accessible to residents. “The priority objective is to allow the delivery of equipment and food,” mentioned the gendarmerie spokesperson.

Shortly after the passage of the convoy of armored autos and development tools on Sunday, a big a part of the “76 neutralized roadblocks” have been instantly reinstalled by the separatists.

Most are “filtering” and permit passage to sure autos, together with firefighters or ambulances at any time, maintains in a press launch launched Monday the Field Action Coordination Unit (CCAT), a pro-independence collective accused by the authorities of fueling violence however who claims to stay “in a peaceful approach”.

Nighttime curfew and state of emergency

Since the beginning final Monday of a wave of violence unprecedented within the archipelago in forty years, six individuals have been killed: a Caldoche (Caledonian of European origin), three Kanaks and two gendarmes.

The navy aircraft bringing again the stays of those two cell gendarmes landed on Monday on the Istres air base (Bouches-du-Rhône), within the presence of the Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, and the Minister Delegate for Overseas Territories. sea, Marie Guévenoux.

“Their names were Nicolas Molinari and Xavier Salou. The entire Nation bows before their coffins. Tribute and condolences to their loved ones,” wrote Prime Minister Gabriel Attal on X.

During the night time from Sunday to Monday, important detonations have been heard in Nouméa, particularly from de-encirclement grenades, utilized by the police to disperse the rioters.

Monday morning, the commercial zone the place the Société Le Nickel (SLN) is situated noticed the hearth in a warehouse which launched thick black smoke.

But the work of the police has made it doable to “start securing” sure areas of town, the High Commissioner of the Republic in New Caledonia, Louis Le Franc, assured X.

Generally talking, communication routes stay blocked the place the rioters – estimated at between 3,000 and 5,000 – have arrange their roadblocks, and the archipelago lives to the rhythm of the nighttime curfew and below a state of emergency.

Greater Nouméa appears to be at a standstill, marked by the scars of clashes, streaked with roadblocks and improvised checkpoints, slowed down by burned automobile wrecks, piles of scrap steel and wooden and melted bitumen, journalists famous. of the AFP.

The Chamber of Commerce and Industry (CCI) known as on Monday to “preserve what little remains” of the New Caledonian financial system, citing “already catastrophic” financial and social “consequences”.

According to the CCI, 150 corporations have been “looted and burned”, and the commercial zone of Ducos, “the true economic heart of New Caledonia, is abandoned to its fate”.

With AFP