New Caledonia on the brink of civil war

In recent days riots in the streets of Nouméa, the capital, and other towns, revealed the existence of unacknowledged weapons and gun battles caused five deaths (including that of a gendarme) and created serious damage to urban infrastructure and dozens of major industries. 

The French government reacted swiftly by declaring a state of emergency, ordered by President Emmanuel Macron, and sending in several hundred gendarmes to try to restore normality. This is nothing new; tensions between Paris and the archipelago go back several decades. New Caledonia has been a French territory since 1853, and in 1998 the French government granted it the status of a country which, without achieving independence, granted it an administrative autonomy that was never consolidated. 

The 270,000 inhabitants of the archipelago, which is divided into dozens of islands, belong to five different ethnic groups and cultures that are often at odds with each other. The percentage of French citizens, who control the power and the economy, are those who maintain the union with France endorsed in the three independence referendums held in recent years. In all cases, the percentage of those in favour of remaining linked to France has always exceeded 50%. 

The older and more affluent consider that with independence, so isolated and lacking sufficient resources to undertake their development, everything is more guaranteed by a power that provides them with economic aid, security and freedom. But the new generations, most of them under 25, disagree and want to embark on their uncertain future without foreign dependence. The main problem is the variety of their origin and culture. 

The increase in tourism, attracted by the beauty of the islands' exotic and varied nature, has awakened the ambition of some of the inhabitants who do not accept that distance (more than 1,200 kilometres from Australia) will always be an obstacle to their development. The most widely spoken language is French, but pro-independence movements with more populist and revolutionary ideas are trying to promote the indigenous languages, especially Kanak, the most widely spoken and popular in the country's rich folklore. 

The incidents of recent days are a response to a French government bill that aims to organise and rationalise the voter register, which is always scattered due to the varied origins of the population. The pro-independence supporters, encouraged by other Russian-influenced countries, particularly Azerbaijan, are strongly opposed to the bill because they believe it would favour the vote of those who want to remain French, who are still in the majority.