Sawt Falasteen - Macron holds back on N. Caledonia voting reform after riots

Since May 13, looting, arson and clashes have left six people dead and hundreds injured. The unrest erupted over a French voting reform plan that indigenous Kanaks say will dilute their voice.

"I have pledged that this reform will not be forced through in the current context," Macron told reporters in New Caledonia's capital Noumea.

"We will allow some weeks to allow a calming of tensions and resumption of dialogue to find a broad accord" among all parties, he added, saying he would review the situation again within a month.

Caledonians would be asked to vote on their future if leaders can reach an over-arching agreement, Macron said. The voting reform had been approved by the French parliament lower house, but still needed final ratification.

The president stepped off a 24-hour flight on Thursday morning local time, arriving in Noumea in the wake of hundreds of police and military reinforcements dispatched from elsewhere in France.

New Caledonia has been ruled from Paris since the 1800s, but many indigenous Kanaks still resent France's power over their islands and want fuller autonomy or independence.

France had planned to give voting rights to thousands of non-indigenous long-term residents, something Kanaks say would dilute the influence of their votes.

Plans to expand the voter rolls to more recent arrivals have "breached the contract of trust", said Victor Gogny, president of New Caledonia's senate -- a consultative body that weighs in on issues affecting Kanaks.

- 'Unprecedented insurrection' -

Separatists have thrown up barricades that have cut off whole neighbourhoods and the main route to the international airport, which remains shuttered.

It had been a "totally unprecedented movement of insurrection," Macron said.

Nightly riots have seen scores of cars, schools, shops and businesses burned.

French authorities have imposed a state of emergency, placed separatist leaders under house arrest, banned alcohol sales and sent around 3,000 troops, police and other security reinforcements to quell the turmoil.

In a call in particular to Kanak representatives, Macron said all politicians needed to call "explicitly" for the lifting of the blockades put up in the "hours and days to come".

"Once these are withdrawn and this is confirmed the state of emergency will be lifted," he said.

Macron said security forces would "stay for as long as necessary, even during the Olympic and Paralympic Games" to be held in Paris in July-August.

- 'No longer up for discussion' -

New Caledonia boasts up to 30 percent of the world's nickel reserves and a strategic location.

China, the United States, New Zealand, Japan, Arab Gulf states and France are vying for influence across the South Pacific -- seeing it as crucial geopolitical real estate.

The archipelago, one of several French overseas territories that span the world's oceans, has on three occasions rejected independence in referendums.

But the last of those ballots took place during the Covid-19 pandemic and was boycotted by much of the Kanak population.

Macron ruled out going back on the result of the referendums, saying peace could not come at the cost of ignoring the will of the people or "somehow denying the road that has already been taken".

He last visited New Caledonia in July 2023, on a trip that was boycotted by Kanak representatives.

Out on the streets, AFP correspondents saw Kanaks still manning reinforced roadblocks on the day of Macron's visit, flying pro-independence flags and displaying protest banners against the electoral reform.

The draft law "doesn't exist to us any more, since people have died, it's no longer even up for discussion," said Lele, a 41-year-old mother in favour of independence.

But a heavy police presence was sheltering some semblance of normal life in central Noumea, where many shops had reopened to customers and long queues formed outside bakeries.

Hundreds of tourists from Australia and New Zealand have begun to flee although hundreds more remain trapped, with Macron's high-security visit doing nothing to speed up the process.

Australia's foreign ministry emailed travellers to say there would be no flights Thursday, while New Zealand announced a military plane would retrieve 43 people in the course of Friday.

P.Tamimi--SF-PST