Vehicles burned, stores looted, clashes between demonstrators and police: violence punctuated the night of Monday May 13 to Tuesday May 14 in Nouméa, 17,000 kilometers from Paris, where deputies are looking into a denounced constitutional revision by the separatists of New Caledonia.

As a result, the High Commission of the Republic in New Caledonia announced a curfew for the night from Tuesday to Wednesday in the Nouméa metropolitan area. The curfew is decreed from Tuesday 6 p.m. to Wednesday 6 a.m., announced in a press release released shortly after 8 a.m. local Tuesday (11 p.m. Monday in Paris) the representative of the State in this South Pacific territory. “It may be renewed as often as necessary,” the text specifies.

In addition, any gathering is prohibited in greater Nouméa, as is the carrying of weapons and the sale of alcohol throughout New Caledonia, reports the high commission which invites the 270,000 inhabitants of the Oceanian archipelago to stay at home.

At the entrance to the New Caledonian “capital”, a large factory specializing in bottling was the victim of an arson attack and was completely destroyed by flames on Monday around 10 p.m. local time (1 p.m. local time). of Paris), noted a journalist from Agence France-Presse (AFP). Several supermarkets were looted in Nouméa, but also in the neighboring towns Dumbéa and Le Mont-Dore. At least two car dealerships were also engulfed in flames around 11 p.m., Agence France-Presse (AFP) was also able to note.

Solemn vote of deputies Tuesday afternoon

As night fell, mobile gendarmes and police officers were battling young masked or hooded demonstrators, who took over several roundabouts. Fires were lit on the road to obstruct traffic, while shots from defensive bullet launchers and de-encirclement grenades were heard throughout the town.

The first altercations with the police began during the day, on the sidelines of the independence mobilization against the constitutional reform examined Monday in the National Assembly, which aims to expand the electorate in provincial elections, crucial in New Caledonia . Established in 1998 by the Nouméa Agreement, the electorate is in fact frozen, which has the consequence, twenty-five years later, of depriving nearly one in five voters of the right to vote. For the Minister of the Interior and Overseas Territories, Gérald Darmanin, who carried out this constitutional reform, this provision “is no longer consistent with the principles of democracy”.

But the separatists criticize, conversely, a thaw which risks “even further minimizing the indigenous Kanak people”. The government project will be submitted to a solemn vote by deputies on Tuesday afternoon. “I have a thought for the police officers (…), and particularly for the gendarmes, from whom we are currently evacuating families threatened with death by demonstrators who do not go through democracy, but through violence, shooting. live bullets, intimidation and death threats,” blasted Gérald Darmanin from the Assembly podium on Monday.

Fear of new incidents

In its press release, the high commission, which denounces “highly intense disturbances to public order”, reports 36 arrests. “Those arrested will be presented to justice during the day,” it is specified.

The gendarmerie, which is responsible for most of New Caledonia, indicated, at the start of the evening, 26 gendarmes injured, including one seriously, in one eye, by the clashes of the day. “No serious injuries have been reported among the population,” said the press release from the high commission.

In fear of new incidents, the RAID, four squadrons of mobile gendarmes and two sections of CRS 8, a unit specializing in the fight against urban violence, will arrive as reinforcements, AFP learned from a source close to the matter.

Near Nouméa, the road which crosses the tribe of Saint-Louis, an independent stronghold, at Mont-Dore and which connects the south of the island to Nouméa was cut by the police, due to the presence of numerous demonstrators, armed with stones, and lit fires on the road.

The popular district of Montravel, in Nouméa, also had to be cut off to traffic on several occasions, as well as the expressway which connects the city to the north of the island.

In a press release previously published on Monday, the High Commissioner of the Republic in New Caledonia, Louis Le Franc, condemned “the blockades of public roads which have taken place since this morning and the numerous attacks on police officers and soldiers of the National Gendarmerie”. He specified that he had given the order for the “progressive unblocking” of the axes occupied during the day.