Why New Caledonia will probably be beneath surveillance on Tuesday September 24 | EUROtoday

Vmost vigilance. While the state of affairs stays tense in New Caledonia 4 months after the beginning of the riots, the independence activists will commemorate on Tuesday, September 24, “the mourning of the Kanak people”, in reference to the date of France's takeover of the archipelago.

On September 24, 1853, Rear Admiral Auguste Febvrier Despointes took possession of New Caledonia “in the name of France” and on the orders of Emperor Napoleon III. Until the Nineteen Seventies, September 24 was thus unanimously celebrated because the date of the “attachment of New Caledonia to France”. But in 1974, the independence activists started to commemorate “the mourning of the Kanak people”.

Since then, September 24 has crystallized the political expectations of the independence motion. In 1980, the Caledonian Union (UC) had stated it hoped for the archipelago's independence by September 24, 1982. Two years later, the Socialist Kanak National Liberation Front (FLNKS) was born on September 24, 1984.

In 2003, a set of sculpted posts, the “Mwa Kaa” (“men's hut”), was inaugurated within the metropolis centre of Noumea, the most important metropolis within the archipelago. This is the place the independence activists have met yearly since.

6,000 regulation enforcement officers mobilized

Yet no independence motion has known as for an illustration on this anniversary this 12 months. The nice customary chiefs, from the Inaat Ne Kanaky affiliation, would be the solely ones to fulfill for a “unilateral declaration of sovereignty over the chiefdoms”. According to the president of the affiliation, Hyppolite Sinewami Htamumu, it’s a “symbolic and solemn act”, which “will allow the indigenous Kanak people to detach themselves from the colonial system”.

In response, since 2004 the federal government has been organizing a “citizenship festival” that brings collectively the cultures of the totally different ethnic teams that populate the island.

On May 13, New Caledonia was the scene of riots following the vote on an electoral reform, accused by its detractors of “diluting” the Kanak voters. Thirteen folks had been killed (together with two gendarmes), and lots of of individuals had been injured. The materials harm is estimated at greater than 2 billion euros.

In order to keep away from “any risk of overflow” on September 24, the French authorities have put in place “an unprecedented security system and the deployment of 6,000 police officers, gendarmes and soldiers,” indicated Théophile de Lassus, the chief of workers of the High Commissioner of the Republic in New Caledonia. That is seven occasions greater than the personnel accessible on May 13, when the riots started. “Deployment columns” are to help the police so as to destroy potential roadblocks.

“Public spaces and churches, affected by arson attacks in recent weeks, will be the subject of particular vigilance,” defined General Nicolas Matthéos, commander of the gendarmerie in New Caledonia. The similar goes for Saint-Louis, a predominantly pro-independence district within the south of Noumea, the capital. Despite all the things, “nothing today allows us to affirm that a resurgence of violence will take place on September 24,” assures Théophile de Lassus.