A military transport aircraft has landed in riot-hit New Caledonia to evacuate trapped tourists, the first rescue flight since looting, arson and deadly gunfire enveloped the French Pacific territory eight days ago.
Australia and New Zealand are sending an initial batch of planes to New Caledonia’s domestic Noumea Magenta airport, where AFP correspondents saw the first Australian C-130 Hercules aircraft land and several coaches waiting.
“Passengers are being prioritised based on need. We continue to work on further flights,” Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong said on social media, announcing two initial flights.
New Zealand is sending one military plane to repatriate “50 passengers with the most pressing needs” to Auckland, Foreign Minister Winston Peters said.
“In cooperation with France and Australia we are working on subsequent flights in coming days,” he said, describing the situation in New Caledonia as “dynamic”.
Australian tourist Maxwell Winchester said he and his wife Tiffany were “ecstatic” to hear evacuation flights had begun after being stuck in a barricaded resort for a week.
The Pacific territory of 270,000 people has been in turmoil since 13 May, when violence erupted over French plans to impose new voting rules that would give tens of thousands of non-indigenous residents voting rights.
The unrest has left six people dead, including two police, and hundreds injured.
The French authorities in New Caledonia said police had so far arrested nearly 270 “rioters”.
Twenty-one supermarkets have been able to reopen and gradually restock, the French high commission said this morning.
French forces were slowly restoring calm across the territory, clearing burned-out vehicles from roads, and deploying troops to protect public buildings, authorities said.
French officials said at the weekend that security forces had destroyed 76 roadblocks along the critical 60km road from the capital Noumea to La Tontouta International Airport.
But AFP journalists said many had quickly been rebuilt by Kanak protesters.
Kanaks with scarfs over their faces, some armed with homemade catapults, were still manning a roadblock on the road to the international airport, which is closed to commercial flights until at least Thursday.
One of those guarding the roadblock, said the proposed voting reform “means the elimination of the Kanak people”.
“That’s what they don’t understand over there – we are already in the minority in our own home,” he said.
Another masked man said they were letting drivers pass through the roadblock, and some people were giving them bread and water.
“It’s calm, the regulars already know us on the barricades,” he said.
Indigenous Kanaks, who make up about 40% of the population, say the latest voting regulations would dilute their vote.
But more recent arrivals to the islands say they are being deprived of their right to take part in local elections.
The new law would extend voting rights to those who have lived in the territory for at least ten years.
The New Caledonian Chamber of Commerce and Industry has reported “catastrophic” economic damage from the unrest, with 150 businesses “looted and set on fire”.
France is considering extending a 12-day state of emergency, which has led to a night-time curfew, house arrests of suspected ringleaders, and bans on TikTok, the sale of alcohol, carrying weapons and gatherings.
New Caledonia has been a French territory since the mid-1800s.
But almost two centuries on, opinion is split roughly along ethnic lines over whether the islands should be part of France, autonomous or independent.
