France’s ‘colonial strategy’ blamed for division in troubled New Caledonia
Al Jazeera
Three months after the French Pacific territory was rocked by a wave of unrest, an uneasy calm has returned.
Noumea, New Caledonia – The debris has been cleared from the streets of New Caledonia’s capital Noumea, but the shells of torched buildings are a continued reminder of the unrest that rocked the French territory in the Pacific nearly three months ago.
The May protests were sparked by Paris’s backing for electoral reforms in the territory that pro-independence supporters say would have diluted the Indigenous Kanak community’s influence at the ballot box.
But while that plan is now on the backburner, with the French government itself in flux following snap general elections this month, there is little sign that the political divisions it exposed have eased.
“It is very difficult for the Kanak people to live here. The French government still has a colonial strategy in New Caledonia and does not respect the political situation here,” Alain, a member of the Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front (FLNKS) who preferred to be known by a pseudonym for security reasons, told Al Jazeera.
In mid-May, demonstrations by pro-independence supporters erupted across the islands in response to the reforms adopted by the National Assembly in Paris to expand New Caledonia’s electoral roll to include about 25,000 recent, mostly European, settlers. Police and activists fought in the streets of Noumea, and homes, as well as public and commercial buildings, were set alight.
