By Nic Maclellan
Tuesday 24 September marks the 171st anniversary of the French annexation of New Caledonia. By order of Napoleon III, Rear-Admiral Février-Despointes officially took possession of the main island Grande Terre in 1853, in a ceremony near the Catholic mission at Balade: “From this day forth, this land is French and part of its national territory.”
For Kanak nationalists, 24 September is often seen as a day of mourning, as France continues its colonial administration well into the 21st Century. But after the signing of the Noumea Accord in May 1998, the Government of New Caledonia tried to transform the meaning of the day. Politicians like the late Dewe Gorode, as Minister for Citizenship and Culture, hoped it could be a day for New Caledonians to share their “common destiny” as citizens of a multi-cultural society, while celebrating Kanak culture and identity.
This year, however, the anniversary comes after more than four months of riots and clashes between Kanak independence activists and police. With 13 deaths, the economy shattered and community attitudes polarised in the capital Noumea, there’s not much to celebrate.
Since mid-May, people across New Caledonia have been living under an overnight curfew. Last week, in the lead up to the anniversary, French High Commissioner Louis Le Franc extended the hours of the curfew to 6pm and 6am, in the hope that a 12-hour overnight lockdown between 21-24 September would discourage protests. In the lead up to the 24 September anniversary, 700 extra police were flown to New Caledonia, adding to more than 5,000 already deployed, to halt any public protest on the day.
Tensions have further escalated in recent days, after police shot and killed Johan Kaidine, 29 years old, and Samuel Moekia, 30, at the tribe of Saint Louis on 19 September.
Raiding the tribe before daybreak, hoping to arrest a dozen people accused of violent crimes and car-jackings, there were clashes between police and Kanak activists. As they did in July, when police shot and killed Rock “Banane” Wamytan at Saint Louis, French officials and diplomats blamed Kanak activists for firing first, with police sharpshooters killing them in response.
French public prosecutor Yves Dupas announced “it appears, from initial investigations that during a manoeuvre carried out using armoured vehicles on the provincial road mobile gendarmes were allegedly targeted by several shots. In the context of the confrontation, a gendarme from the Groupe d’Intervention de la Gendarmerie Nationale [GIGN, an elite paramilitary unit] fired two shots, while the armoured vehicle was approaching and gendarmes on an observation mission would have been directly threatened by the group of armed individuals.”
Dupas said that “the gendarme’s first shot hit a man, 30, positioned as a sniper, who was injured in the right flank. The second shot hit a 29-year-old man in the chest. The two deceased were the subject of a search warrant dated 18 and 29 July 2024, among 13 people investigated, sought and located in Saint Louis.”
However the two deaths sparked as angry response from the independence movement Front de Libération Nationale Kanak et Socialiste (FLNKS), with a statement expressing “deep indignation and sadness at the tragic events that occurred this morning on the customary lands of the tribe of Saint Louis, commune of Mont-Dore, where two young Kanaks were shot dead by the police. The FLNKS condemns the disproportionate use of force by state authorities which reveals colonial practices. These actions only worsen the situation on the ground and set back the prospect of a peaceful solution.”
“The FLNKS calls on the entire population not to give in to violence, despite their pain and facing provocations”, the statement said. “Today, more than ever, peace and justice must guide our actions, with a view to preserving the stability of our country. The FLNKS denounces the barbaric and humiliating methods used by the police, who did not hesitate to carry out a summary execution of one of the young people in question.”
For opponents of independence, there is strong support for the police intervention into Saint Louis tribe, described on social media as “a nest of terrorists” that has blocked the road from the capital to the outlying town of Mont Dore for four months. For many independence supporters, however, police operations onto customary land in a tribal reserve are part of a wider militarisation of the conflict.
Colonial history of Saint Louis
To understand why Saint Louis is such a hot spot, it’s important to understand the colonial history of the area, just 17 kilometres from the centre of Noumea.
The Saint Louis and La Conception reserves were formed after 19th Century clashes between indigenous Kanak clans and the French military in the north of New Caledonia. After putting down the 1878 revolt by Chief Ataï, French forces massacred hundreds of Kanak villagers. To avoid retaliation from those clans still opposed to Christianity, Catholic missionaries fled from the northern towns of Pouebo and Balade to the capital Noumea, taking with them Kanak who had turned to the Western faith.
These first “transported” Kanak served as domestics and field workers for the Ave Maria mission at Saint Louis. Later, other Kanak came from different areas of the main island to strengthen the mission work force. From the 1960s, as people migrated from Wallis and Futuna to work in New Caledonia’s booming nickel industry, Wallisian families were also settled on land near the church at Saint Louis.
More than twenty years ago, tensions within the Kanak clans and other settler communities broke out into violence, and Saint Louis went through a period of turmoil similar to today. At the time, there were two high chiefs in the community: Robert Moyatea, a stalwart of the anti-independence party RPCR, and Roch Wamytan, a member of Union Calédonienne, the largest party in the FLNKS independence movement. As chief of the Négrah clan, from 1983 until his death in 2017, Moyatea served as High Chief of Mont Dore, to be succeeded by his son Adolphe in 2021.
In the years after the signing of the 1998 Noumea Accord, political differences between the RPCR and FLNKS overlaid customary disputes, contributing to conflict at Saint Louis in the early 2000s. By 2001, there were 171 Wallisian families living on land allocated by the Catholic church. As tensions rose with Kanak clans, half of these Wallisian families were rehoused over the next year, but many remained near the church, as no public housing could be found for them in the capital.
In June 2003, after a traditional case (Kanak house) was burnt down, rival groups in Saint Louis traded rifle fire and police moved in firing tear gas. Five people were wounded, including a nun and a police officer. In August that year, police launched a major raid into Saint Louis. More than 250 French police entered the village before dawn, backed by armoured vehicles and two helicopters, arresting people and seizing weapons.
At that time, I interviewed Jean-Charles Nemoadjou, a member of the council of chiefs of Mont Dore. He said that the police operation exacerbated anger from young people on all sides, damaged faltering attempts at customary reconciliation and discredited community elders.
More than 20 years ago, Nemoadjou described police tactics that echo last week’s clashes at Saint Louis: “There were over 250 men, five armoured vehicles and five trucks, as well as two helicopters which flew overhead to supervise the operation. They came straight in and went straight to the houses they’d targeted…They hassled the women, broke people’s roofs, smashed down doors. They even forced young kids – no older than four or five years – to kneel down like they were terrorists!”
“After that, the whole tribe of Saint Louis reacted,” he said. “We took up positions to block access for the Wallisians. We also blocked the access roads for the police. When they came with their armoured cars to get past our roadblocks, they fired tear gas and grenades that damaged the mission. Three mothers were wounded, and after that they left again.”
Since that time, Saint Louis has erupted in protest on many occasions, reinforcing police perceptions of the tribe as a hot-bed of violent agitators.
For the French High Commission and many anti-independence politicians, the latest raids on Saint Louis are justified and targeted interventions against known criminals. For local villagers, however, there’s a sense that the whole community is being punished. For weeks, the French “forces of order” have blocked roads leading to the tribe, requiring people to leave on foot after presenting an ID at police checkpoints. Restrictions on the purchase of gas bottles or jerrycans on petrol have inconvenienced villagers, raising concern that police tactics amount to collective punishment.
For older generations, last week’s shooting of the two activists by GIGN officers also recalls the armed clashes in New Caledonia in 1984-88, known as “Les évènements.”
As part of the Gendarmerie nationale, the GIGN describes itself as “a unit dedicated to counter-terrorism, extreme crisis management, the fight against organised crime as well as the security and protection of the vital interests of the French State.” In January 1985, GIGN sharpshooters killed Eloi Machoro and Marcel Nonnaro, two historic leaders who mobilised the FLNKS at the start of the Kanak uprising. GIGN paramilitary units, joined by French soldiers and commandoes, were also involved in the 1988 Ouvea crisis, which culminated in the death of two soldiers and 19 Kanak activists – with at least three Kanak executed after surrendering.
Concern over militarisation
These different perceptions of police operations have been clear from the start of the current conflict.
Triggered by French President Emmanuel Macron’s proposed changes to voting rights, young people began rioting on the night of 13 May. Dodging teargas, flash balls and occasional gunfire, protestors mobilised in the capital Noumea and in neighbouring towns, despite an overnight curfew (the curfew was soon extended across the whole territory, and remains in place today after four months of riots and clashes between protestors and police). More than 2,600 people have been arrested, with seven leaders of the CCAT network deported to France for pre-trial detention.
As protestors and police clashed on the barricades, French authorities weakened restrictions on the use of GML2L tear gas and flash-bang grenades. Human rights groups like Violences policières have documented injuries caused by these grenades in France, including protestors and passersby who have lost a hand or eye. In 2021, France’s then Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin issued regulations telling police that these grenades could only be used with a specific launcher, rather than thrown by hand. In June this year, the Interior Ministry quietly told police authorities that these restrictions had been lifted – but only for gendarmes operating in New Caledonia, not in France!
Today, Paris has deployed more than 6,000 police and security forces in its South Pacific dependency. Of the 116 squadrons of gendarmerie in France, 35 are currently deployed in New Caledonia. These officers are backed by 150 GIGN paramilitary soldiers; CRS riot squads from the Compagnies Républicaines de Sécurité; and officers of the Anti-Terrorist Sub-Directorate, part of France’s Police judiciaire. These units have logistic and technical support from the Forces Armées en Nouvelle-Calédonie (the French armed forces based in New Caledonia).
On 10 July, the French High Commission announced that the freighter Calao had arrived in Noumea from Toulon in France, carrying armoured cars, trucks and other vehicles to support police operations: “Ten new Centaure armoured vehicles will reinforce the six armoured vehicles already in place in the territory.” Alongside armoured cars for the gendarmerie, more military vehicles were unloaded for the French army, including variants of the VAB military personnel carrier and Renault trucks.
On 17 September, High Commissioner Le Franc was interviewed by the local newspaper La Voix du Caillou about the current security operation.
“In Nouméa,” Le Franc acknowledged, “we have recurring problems with the young who live in social housing and squats, even if it has been much calmer for a month. These are not young people who are complicated to manage in matters of public order, because in fact they do not resist. They throw stones, put obstacles on public roads and it doesn’t go much further. We have the feeling that these young people want to play with the police.”
In contrast, Le Franc saw police operations near Saint Louis tribe as much more dangerous.
“We will go after anyone who is causing trouble in Saint Louis,” he warned. “I only have one piece of advice to give them, and that is to surrender. This is the only outcome that will save their lives.”
“The problems posed by this tribe have lasted for fifty years, but we will restore order in Saint Louis,” he added. “The task is lengthy because the opposition is very strong. A 22-year-old mobile gendarme was killed on 14 May; a rioter was killed by return fire from the GIGN on 10 July; we’ve recorded 313 shots from very powerful weapons at the police; 65 car-jackings recorded, including 34 committed with the use or threat of weapons since 13 May.”
It’s notable that the French authorities are keeping detailed records of injuries to police and the number of shots fired at the “forces of order.” In all their weekly updates, however, they never announce the number of civilian casualties, the number of shots fired by police, the number of tear gas grenades lobbed at protestors.
These double standards, backed by attempts to typecast “moderate” and “terrorist” Kanak, have polarised attitudes to police operations, and raised fears amongst many community and customary leaders over the militarisation of the conflict. These concerns are echoed by independent human rights experts. In August, a statement by UN human rights rapporteurs criticised “the absence of dialogue, the excessive use of force, the ongoing deployment of military forces and the continued reports of human rights violations.”
Contested attitudes to killings
Journalists and human rights groups continue to raise questions over the shooting of Kanak protestors, as CCAT activists or customary authorities in New Caledonia challenge initial police accounts of the deaths.
As one example, on 15 August, 43-year-old Marco Caco was killed protesting near Thio. Caco was shot in the head by a police officer and later died in hospital, and other man was shot and wounded in the stomach. Initial statements by police say they shot the protestors after being fired on, but video of the incident added to debates over whether the protestors held firearms at all.
In his initial statement at the time, prosecutor Dupas said police fired on protestors after they were “violently attacked…by being pelted with stones, Molotov cocktails and gunfire.” General Nicolas Matthéos, commander of the gendarmerie in New Caledonia, told local media: “They had weapons. We were shot at, with firearms, Molotov cocktails, stones and our own [tear gas] grenades that had not exploded and which they repurposed.”
In contrast, a CCAT activist replied: “I admit that there were insults and the use of slingshots. But our instructions have always been clear: ‘No firearms.’ We are hunters here. I can tell you that if we’d had guns, there would have been injuries on both sides. That was not the case.”
Pastor Billy Wetewea is a member of the Église Protestante de Kanaky Nouvelle-Calédonie, the main Protestant denomination in New Caledonia. He’s a leading voice for community reconciliation, and worries about the militarisation of policing in the French Pacific colony.
“What we see on the street is that police and army are still clearing the road and trying to secure the roads,” Wetewea told me. “We see some of the ways that the police deal with people on the street. It’s disproportionate how the military are taking action to deal with the people on the streets who are manifesting [protesting] for their rights.”
“We lost one of our people on the roadblocks in the southern town of Thio, because they throw stones,” he said. “The police came and wanted to remove the roadblocks – the protestors throw stones to the police and they retaliated with shots. One man was shot in the head, and died. We see this as [a] disproportionate response. Why? Why? This sort of action is not helping the situation to be calm.”
Verification of these contested accounts must await a full investigation and court proceedings. But many independence supporters do not trust police to investigate their own, and FLNKS leaders have lost faith in the impartiality of French High Commissioner le Franc and Public Prosecutor Dupas. An FLNKS statement last month “urged, once again, the President of the Republic to recall his representatives the High Commissioner and the public prosecutor, appointed by presidential decree, who are obvious sources of institutional, judicial and social violence.”
Last week, after the death of the two men at Saint Louis, the FLNKS also called for “the establishment, without delay, of an independent and impartial investigation to shed light on the circumstances of these assassinations, in order to establish responsibility for the deaths.”
As incoming French Prime Minister Michel Barnier announced his new Cabinet last weekend, the newspaper Le Monde published an editorial, arguing that the new French government must take action on “New Caledonia is a matter of absolute urgency. Not only because the security and economic situation in the French Pacific territory has been alarming for almost 300,000 of our compatriots since the start of the violent insurrection in May, but also because France has a duty there to achieve what it has so often failed to do in the past: decolonisation.”
“The new government is intended to bring about a complete change of political approach, following the tragic failure of previous governments”, said the editorial. “A quarter of a century after the 1998 Nouméa Accord, which offered New Caledonians ‘a common destiny’ and, eventually, ‘complete emancipation’, and after three unsuccessful referendums on independence, it’s time to move toward a new model of sovereignty for this territory, where 24 September, when France took possession in 1853, remains a sensitive date.”
