Seven more mobile force units will soon arrive as reinforcements in New Caledonia, the Elysée said in a statement on Monday, also indicating a state of emergency would end as planned in the French Pacific territory on Tuesday morning local time.

The state of emergency would end on Monday evening at 8:00 p.m. in Paris (Tuesday 5:00 a.m. in Noumea).

Seven people have been killed, hundreds arrested and large numbers of buildings and cars destroyed in a fortnight of upheaval triggered by a contested electoral reform and fuelled by sharp economic disparities between the indigenous Kanak population and people of European background.

Police shot dead a man on Friday evening, a day after French President Emmanuel Macron visited to try to calm tensions.

The arrival of an additional 480 gendarmes will bring the number of French security forces in the Pacific territory to some 3,500.

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Macron’s decision not to renew the state of emergency illustrates Paris’s desire to start the process of de-escalation and re-establish conditions for dialogue, the statement added.

 

Reuters