France launches 'major operation' to restore order in New Caledonia 'at any cost'
(Baonghean.vn) - According to RT, France has launched a "major operation" in the Pacific overseas territory of New Caledonia, where riots are taking place, to regain the vital route connecting the airport with the region's capital Noumea.
The archipelago east of Australia has been swept up in unrest and clashes sparked by controversial electoral reforms pushed by Paris.
More than 600 gendarmes, including about 100 officers from Paris' elite anti-terrorism unit, were deployed to regain control of the 60-kilometer-long Route Territoriale 1 and clear barricades erected by protesters, according to French authorities.
Interior Minister Gerald Darmain wrote on Twitter on May 19 that the operation had been “successful” with more than 76 roadblocks removed. He added that more than 200 people had been arrested. However, the highway remained closed as clearing debris could take several days.
Riots broke out in New Caledonia on May 13 and have so far claimed six lives. Indigenous Kanak activists are protesting constitutional reforms that would allow people who arrived in New Caledonia after 1998 to vote in local elections. Activists believe such a change would dilute the power of indigenous peoples in favor of French settlers. Peaceful protests quickly descended into violence and looting, which local officials have compared to the armed pro-independence uprising of the 1980s.
“The order of the Republic will be restored at any cost,” the French High Commissioner to New Caledonia, Louis Le Franc, said in a televised speech on May 19.
He warned that rioters “face the worst” if they do not back down.
Colonised in the 19th century, New Caledonia is home to 270,000 people, of whom the Kanak people make up around 40%. Although largely still under French control – one of the few such territories in the post-colonial era – the archipelago was granted greater autonomy in 1998 when voting rights were restricted to the local population who had lived there before 1998.
The heads of four other French overseas territories – La Reunion in the Indian Ocean, Guadeloupe and Martinique in the Caribbean, and French Guiana in South America – have urged the French government to scrap the reform, arguing that “only a political response can prevent further violence and prevent a civil war”.
New Caledonia has rejected independence from France in referendums held in 2018, 2020 and 2021. The most recent vote was marred by low turnout and calls for a boycott from Kanak activists who wanted the referendum postponed due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
